What is causing this error - "Fatal error: Unable to find local grunt"

Question

I removed the old version of grunt first, then I installed the new grunt version, and then I got this error:

D:\www\grunt-test\grunt grunt-cli: The grunt command line interface. (v0.1.4)

Fatal error: Unable to find local grunt.

If you're seeing this message, either a Gruntfile wasn't found or grunt hasn't been installed locally to your project. For more information about installing and configuring grunt, please see the Getting Started guide: http://gruntjs.com/getting-started

Is this because there is not a reference to grunt in my system path? Or something else? I tried to re-install it a few times already.

Answer 1

I think you don't have a grunt.js file in your project directory. Use grunt:init, which gives you options such as jQuery, node,commonjs. Select what you want, then proceed. This really works. For more information you can visit this.

Do this:

 1. npm install -g grunt  2. grunt:init  ( you will get following options ):       jquery: A jQuery plugin       node: A Node module       commonjs: A CommonJS module       gruntplugin: A Grunt plugin       gruntfile: A Gruntfile (grunt.js)  3 .grunt init:jquery (if you want to create a jQuery related project.). 

It should work.

Solution for v1.4:

1. npm install -g grunt-cli 2. npm init    fill all details and it will create a package.json file. 3. npm install grunt (for grunt dependencies.) 

Edit : Updated solution for new versions:

 npm install grunt --save-dev 

Answer 2

Install Grunt in node_modules rather than globally

Unable to find local Grunt likely means that you have installed Grunt globally.

The Grunt CLI insists that you install grunt in your local node_modules directory, so Grunt is local to your project.

This will fail:

npm install -g grunt 

Do this instead:

npm install grunt --save-dev