[BUG] npmrc ingore-scripts=true blocks rebuild postinstall script

[nicosoenksen]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

This issue exists in the latest npm version

• I am using the latest npm

Current Behavior

With ignore-scripts=true in my .npmrc file, lifecycle scripts will not be executed while running npm install. Perfect.
But they will not be executed with npm rebuild as well.

Expected Behavior

ignore-scripts=true in the .npmrc file only blocks lifecycle scripts while running npm install, not also for npm rebuild, so i can make sure, for which packages the lifecycle scripts will be executed.

Steps To Reproduce

1. In this environment: local.
2. add to your .npmrc file ignore-scripts=true
3. Try to install a package with a lifecycle script. I used the package cypress version 15.7.1, witch has a postinstall script
4. Try to start cypress, it should throw an error like: "No version of Cypress is installed in: C:\Users***", of course it throws this error, because the post install script wasn`t executed. So it works as expected.
5. Now run npm rebuild cypress 15.7.1, no error. But if you try to start cypress you will get the same error as before.
   The npm_cache log files for this operation will look like this:
   0 verbose cli C:\Program Files\nodejs\node.exe C:\Users\***\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js 1 info using npm@11.9.0 2 info using node@v25.6.0 3 silly config load:file:C:\Users\**\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\npm\npmrc 4 silly config load:file:C:\Users\*** 5 silly config load:file:C:\Users\***\.npmrc 6 silly config load:file:C:\Users\***\AppData\Roaming\npm\etc\npmrc 7 verbose title npm rebuild cypress 15.7.1 8 verbose argv "rebuild" "cypress" "15.7.1" 9 verbose logfile logs-max:10 dir:C:\Users\***\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2026-02-09T21_17_34_667Z- 10 verbose logfile C:\Users\***\AppData\Local\npm-cache\_logs\2026-02-09T21_17_34_667Z-debug-0.log 11 silly logfile start cleaning logs, removing 1 files 12 silly packumentCache heap:4496293888 maxSize:1124073472 maxEntrySize:562036736 13 silly logfile done cleaning log files 14 verbose cwd C:\Users\*** 15 verbose os Windows 16 verbose node v25.6.0 17 verbose npm v11.9.0 18 verbose exit 0 19 info ok
   there is no postinstall.

6.remove ignore-scripts=true from your .npmrc and run npm rebuild cypress 15.7.1 again. Cypress will work because the postinstall scripts got executed, you can verify this in the new log:
... 13 silly logfile done cleaning log files 14 info run cypress@15.7.1 postinstall node_modules/cypress node dist/index.js --exec install 15 info run cypress@15.7.1 postinstall { code: 0, signal: null } ... (i just added the new lines here)

Environment

• npm: 11.8.0 and 11.9.0
• Node.js: 25.6.0
• OS Name: Windows