Question: Is there some URL from which I can download a given package from npm (as a tarball or something)? I need the exact files that were originally uploaded to npm.

Using `npm install` gets a different, generated package.json for example. I want the exact original set of files that was published.

Answer: 
You can use [`npm view`](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/view) to get the URL to the registry's tarball (in this example for the module `level`):

```
$ npm view level dist.tarball

```

And to download tarball, you can use [`npm pack`](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/pack):

```
$ npm pack level

```
Running `npm pack PACKAGE_NAME` will download a tarball of any package on npm. 

To extract it, just run `tar -xzf DOWNLOADED_FILE.tgz`

### Example:

```
npm pack react

```

then extract:

```
tar -xzf react-16.6.3.tgz

```