npm is installed using nvm but IntelliJ does not know about it

Question

I installed NPM using NVM.

When I use npm in Intellij terminal, it says I don't have NPM installed. But if I use Ubuntu terminal, it is working.

Here are what I tried:

I have already tried to set my node interpreter (in "Language and Framework" > "Node and NPM", set to ~/.nvm/versions/node/v6.8.0/bin/node).

I have also already enabled the Node.js Core library. There it shows the npm package is included.

But the IntelliJ terminal still complains I haven't installed npm. Why?

Answer 1

It is because idea terminal launches a login shell by default, so the .bashrc file is not read.

To solve the problem:

Open "Settings" in IntelliJ. Then, expand "Tools" in the left panel, then click 'Terminal'.

Add -i to the Shell Path. (eg. /bin/bash -i)

Answer 2

This fixed it for me:

NVM patches environment variables on terminal startup only. If the IDE is launched from Terminal, it inherits Terminal environment (including modified PATH environment variable, added NVM_DIR env var, etc). In that case, there are normally no problems with using node/npm, because Idea sees the correct PATH value. For bash as shell, workaround could be the the following: edit your Idea launcher and set command to "/bin/bash -l -c "/path/to/idea.sh". This command will perform bash login (i.e. reading your .bashrc/.bash_profile files) and after that will run idea

https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/205964744/comments/205060164

Just edit your Intellij launcher / startup script and change that to /bin/bash -i -c <path to idea.sh>