When you use the NpmBuild native step in a pipeline, it performs the following functions in the background:
jfrog rt config (if there is a FileSpec input, to configure the JFrog CLI with the Artifactory credentials in the input FileSpec)
jfrog rt use (to set the current default Artifactory configuration)
cp (if there is an input FileSpec, copy the files to the root of the cloned GitRepo)
jfrog rt npm-config (configure the repository to resolve dependencies)
jfrog rt npm-install
add_run_variables (save information about this step for future steps)
jfrog rt build-collect-env (collect environment variables)
add_run_files (save the output and the build information in the run state for later publish steps)