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Question

Been struggling to get my first vue project started and was looking for some help. I have both npm and node updated on my system but continually keep falling to the same issue.

My steps:

1.) npm install
Terminal Response:

npm WARN [email protected] No description
up to date in 0.095s

2.) npm install vue
Terminal Response:

npm WARN [email protected] No description + [email protected]
updated 1 package in 0.951s

Here's where things get funky?

3.) npm install -g @vue/cli
Terminal Response:

npm ERR! path /Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//node_modules/.bin
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! errno -13
npm ERR! syscall rmdir
npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, rmdir '/Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//node_modules/.bin'
npm ERR! { Error: EACCES: permission denied, rmdir '/Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//node_modules/.bin'
npm ERR! cause:
npm ERR! { Error: EACCES: permission denied, rmdir '/Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//node_modules/.bin'
npm ERR! errno: -13,
npm ERR! code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR! syscall: 'rmdir',
npm ERR! path: '/Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//node_modules/.bin' },
npm ERR! stack: 'Error: EACCES: permission denied, rmdir '/Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//node_modules/.bin'',
npm ERR! errno: -13,
npm ERR! code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR! syscall: 'rmdir',
npm ERR! path: '/Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//node_modules/.bin' }
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /Users/mbasile/.npm/_logs/2018-05-09T17_53_06_030Z-debug.log

So given this response I run

4.) sudo npm install -g @vue/cli

Terminal Response:

/Users/mbasile/.npm-global/bin/vue -> /Users/mbasile/.npm-global/lib/node_modules//bin/vue.js
+ @3.0.0-beta.9
updated 1 package in 6.597s

5.) vue create vue-project Terminal Response:

-bash: vue: command not found

Leaving me a bit puzzled and confused here, but any help/response would be appreciated.

Jakub Rybiński Jakub Rybiński · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-25T14:26:39

I had this problem too and it was a little bit tricky to find a solution so I'll describe all the steps that helped me find a solution.

It's resolving a general problem with the wrong path for global packages in npm or missing path in shell variable $PATH.

Fix for macOS Mojave but should work on all UNIX systems

First of all, after installing the package globally npm will show you where a new package is installed.

$ npm i -g @vue/cli
/usr/local/Cellar/node/9.5.0/bin/vue -> /usr/local/Cellar/node/9.5.0/lib/node_modules/@vue/cli/bin/vue.js

We can also check it in the npm config.

$ npm config get prefix
/usr/local/Cellar/node/9.5.0

So if after the global installation your terminal couldn't recognize the command it's probably missing in your shell variable $PATH. You can easily check it.

$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

As we can see, the path from npm config isn't present in the shell variable $PATH.

Now we have two options to fix it.

1. First option - change npm config.

$ npm config set prefix '/usr/local'
$ npm config get prefix
/usr/local

After we changed the path in the config we will have to reinstall the desired package.

$ npm i -g @vue/cli

2. Second option - add path from npm config to shell $PATH

$ export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/Cellar/node/9.5.0

In this case, we don't need to install the package again.

Regardless of the selected option, we can now control if everything works.

$  vue --version
3.0.5

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3 Answers