'webpack-dev-server' is not recognized as an internal or external command,

Question

I cloned this Webpack Starter package through github using gitbash following a tutorial on pluralsight. I am trying to access webpack through Visual Studio Code's integrated terminal but i get the following error. I am new to this so kindly help me on this.

I am running a command

 Raza Zaidi@RazaZaidi-PC MINGW64 ~/webpack-starter (master)
$ npm run dev

and then following error occurs

> [email protected] dev C:\Users\Raza Zaidi\webpack-starter
> webpack-dev-server --open --config webpack/webpack.config.dev.js

'webpack-dev-server' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! [email protected] dev: `webpack-dev-server --open --config webpack/webpack.config.dev.js`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] dev script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\Raza Zaidi\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-08-14T20_16_29_017Z-debug.log

Answer 1

Webpack command should be present in location: node_modules\.bin\

In this case in package.json file we are referring to webpack-dev-server, but locally webpack-dev-server doesn't exist.

First run following command for global installation:

npm install -g webpack-dev-server

Second execute local installation command, which will create node_modules\.bin\webpack-dev-server:

npm install webpack-dev-server --save-dev

Answer 2

running

npm install -g webpack-dev-server

in cmd as an administrator solved my problem. I hope it helps others.

Answer 3

Recent versions of Webpack & WDS need webpack-cli package, I recommend you to downloaded if your Webpack version is 4 or higher