Why do installations of run-s and run-p succeed without installing npm-run-all ?

[rout39574]

I'm supporting some folks using Node resources. At one point I was told "Oh, we need run-s". I installed it and found no binlink. It took me some rooting around to determine that run-s and run-p are affordances of npm-run-all.

This led me to the question: Why is it arranged to be possible for run-s to "install without error" when it does not in fact provide the run-s facility? I feel like there's a fundamental facet about how Node thinks of the world, which I'm missing. Is there a doc reference that helps explain this?

Is there a reason that the run-s placeholder package doesn't just depend on npm-run-all? Is the run-s package a deliberate no-op to mask hostile sniping of that bit of the namespace?