`node` in the command line

Posted on In

I ran into this hassle the other day when my npm command failed to work in the command line. It took me a while to sort things out and left me in a foul mood. To prevent something like that from happening again, I decided to write this post. Nothing fancy - just some commands that might prove helpful in the long run.

node

Display global installation directory

1
npm root -g

If you installed node using the official package installer, the global installation directory for npm packages would be:

/usr/local/lib/node_modules

Or you could’ve installed it using Homebrew. In that case, the global installation directory would be:

/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules

View global installation

1
npm ls -g
/opt/homebrew/lib
├── @e-hentai/home@1.6.0-alpha.9
├── express-generator@4.16.1
├── nodemon@2.0.22
└── npm@9.6.5

Update global installation

1
npm update -g

View global configuration

1
npm config list

The output should be on the lines of this:

; "builtin" config from /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/npm/npmrc

prefix = "/opt/homebrew" 

; "user" config from /Users/Mccranky/.npmrc

fetch-retry-maxtimeout = 300000 

; node bin location = /opt/homebrew/Cellar/node/20.0.0/bin/node
; node version = v20.0.0
; npm local prefix = /Users/Mccranky
; npm version = 9.6.5
; cwd = /Users/Mccranky
; HOME = /Users/Mccranky
; Run `npm config ls -l` to show all defaults.

From it, we can discern a few key instances that might prove helpful.

“builtin” config is stored at /opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/npm/npmrc

“user” config is stored at /Users/Mccranky/.npmrc

Add/remove configuration

1
npm config set <name> <value>

For example, if I want to specify a range of time before timeout occurs, I can use the following command:

1
2
3
4
npm config set fetch-retry-maxtimeout 300000 // 5 minutes

npm config set fetch-retry-mintimeout 60000 // 1 minute

The same mechanism applys when it comes to how we delete configurations:

1
2
3
4
npm config delete fetch-retry-maxtimeout

npm config delete fetch-retry-mintimeout

express

I’ve only just started dabbling with express and my expertise is cut pretty thin, but the rule of thumb I tend to follow is:

  1. If you’re installing something that you want to use in your program using require('something'), then install it locally, at the root of your project.

  2. If you’re installing something that you want to use on the command line or something, install it globally, so that its binaries end up in your $PATH environment variable.

Based on this, you would want to install express-generator using the -g flag as you will use it as a command line tool, but you’d want to install express without this flag as it’s a module you will want to require() it in your application.