Running npm i today with config set per https://www.npmjs.com/package/node-gyp#user-content-configuration, you will get the following warning:

npm warn Unknown user config "devdir". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.

Googling will lead you to npm/cli#8153 where the npm folks are very adamant that they do not want global node package installation related configuration in your .npmrc anymore, and will break it on purpose soon.

Switching to an env var, the only other method of configuring node-gyp in the docs gives a similar warning:

npm warn Unknown env config "devdir". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.

So node-gyp needs a new place for config that npm cannot break.

• "Unknown user/project config" warnings starting in npm 11.2.0 npm/cli#8153