Npm global not being used?

Question

So I've previously had some npm issues and followed some stackoverflow/github issues commands to attempt to fix them. Which worked... Kinda. Everything was fine until recently when I realised that my global npm packages are not actually being read/used.

So whenever I did a npm -g install xxx, or an update. It updates the global folder alright, but it's just not being used. So I went to dig a little and found this.

Where npm is reading/using from

usr/local/lib/node_modules

Where the global is installing to

Users/Me/.npm-global/lib/node_modules

So whenever I did a -g check for my modules and stuff, everything is good and updated, but when I actually try to run anything, the npm command uses the one in the older folders. So basically I can't update or install anything using -g. And nothing goes into the old folder which is the one being actually used.

How do I resolve this? Was some linking or profile got screwed?

Answer 1

It looks like this is about your npm prefix configuration. Global Prefix is the folder where npm will install global packages.

First I would run the following command to get the value of the global prefix (https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/prefix)

$ npm prefix -g

To set it to a different value:

npm config set prefix /usr/local/lib/node_modules

This is for the location of your global packages, now you need to check that your terminal PATH variable is checking this folder for binaries.

$ echo $PATH

Command above will print a ":" separated list of folder location that your shell checks for binaries.

Your global npm prefix location should be part of that list, from your question I'd assume this folder /usr/local/lib/node_modules already is.

Answer 2

Below are the steps to change the home directory for global npm installations for currently logged in user:

1. Make a directory for global installations:

   mkdir ~/.npm-global

2. Configure npm to use the new directory path:

   npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'

3. Open or create a ~/.profile file and add this line:

   export PATH=~/.npm-global/bin:$PATH

4. Back on the command line, update your system variables:

   source ~/.profile

5. Test: Download a package globally without using sudo.

   npm install -g <package_name>

Instead of steps 1-5, you can use the corresponding ENV variable (e.g. if you don't want to modify ~/.profile):

NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.npm-global

The above configuration would not work if you use sudo to install the npm modules as it will follow the configurations set for root user.