npm packages not available when installed locally

Question

I am working with npm on a web app and I found an issue when using some packages that requires terminal commands to run such like nodemon and concurrently

I installed it via

sudo npm install --save-dev nodemon

and when I try to use it via:

nodemon ./server.js

I get an error

nodemon command not found

and the same when I used concurrently

I tried also with

sudo npm install --save nodemon 

and it doesn't work.

it only work if I installed it globally

sudo npm install -g nodemon

Why I can't use it when install locally?

Note: I can found the executable file at node_modules/.bin

but this following not working as well

node_modules/.bin/nodemon ./server.js

Answer 1

Global packages can be launched directly because they are saved in your PATH directory by default. If you saved a package locally you can see it on node_modules/.bin/ as you mentioned. So there are 2 ways to achieve what you want if you want to run an executable package if installed locally:

• You can run it via terminal as ./node_modules/.bin/nodemon yourscript.js

• Or via npm scripts in your package.json file, you do this:

  {
    "scripts": {
      "nodemon": "nodemon yourscript.js"
    }
  }  
  

  and execute npm run nodemon.

The 2nd approach works for both packages installed globally or locally.

I prefer installing packages locally, so my other apps won't get affected especially if I'm using different package versions per project.

UPDATE

On [email protected] onwards, it comes with a binary called npx. So you can run specific packages on the terminal just by npx [package] and it executes either your local or global npm package. In your case it should be something like npx nodemon server.js.

Answer 2

Because it's in your node_modules/.bin folder, not your PATH.

You can either use ./node_modules/.bin/nodemon or $(npm bin)/nodemon to call nodemon.