Bower El Capitan install issues - node.js

Question

A bit of a long one but I figure including as much info as I can will give me the best chance of getting a solution.
I am on OSX 10.11.6 El Capitan.
I have Hombrew installed and Node, npm and git via Homebrew.
I have xcode and command line tools installed.
$ brew -v
Homebrew 0.9.9 (git revision 09929; last commit 2016-09-15)
Homebrew/homebrew-core (git revision 08ce; last commit 2016-09-15)
$ node -v
v6.5.0
$ which node
/usr/local/bin/node
$ npm -v
3.10.3
$ which npm
/usr/local/bin/npm
I seem to be able to install bower without issue:
$ npm install -g bower
/usr/local/bin/bower -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/bin/bower
/usr/local/lib
└── bower#1.7.9
But then I run bower -v to check my install and I run in to a problem:
$ bower -v
/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/configstore/index.js:54
throw err;
^
Error: EACCES: permission denied, open '/Users/username/.config/configstore/bower-github.json'
You don't have access to this file.
at Error (native)
at Object.fs.openSync (fs.js:640:18)
at Object.fs.readFileSync (fs.js:508:33)
at Object.get (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/configstore/index.js:35:26)
at Object.Configstore (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/configstore/index.js:28:44)
at readCachedConfig (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/config.js:19:23)
at defaultConfig (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/config.js:11:12)
at Object.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/index.js:16:32)
at Module._compile (module.js:556:32)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:565:10)
So I run these commands:
$ sudo chown -R $USER:$GROUP ~/.npm
$ sudo chown -R $USER:$GROUP ~/.config
And then I run bower -v again:
$ bower -v
1.7.9
It looks to be sorted until I try and install my first package:
$ bower install bootstrap --save-dev
bower bootstrap#* not-cached
https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap.git#*
bower bootstrap#* resolve https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap.git#*
bower bootstrap#* checkout v3.3.7
bower bootstrap#* progress Receiving objects: 19% (78/409)
bower bootstrap#* progress Receiving objects: 46% (189/409), 708.00 KiB | 703.00 KiB/s
bower bootstrap#* progress Receiving objects: 49% (201/409), 1.73 MiB | 883.00 KiB/s
bower bootstrap#* EACCES EACCES: permission denied, open '/Users/username/.cache/bower/packages/478ab1d28ba78f550601bf536eea62f5-3.3.7.lock'
Stack trace:
Error: EACCES: permission denied, open '/Users/username/.cache/bower/packages/478ab1d28ba78f550601bf536eea62f5-3.3.7.lock'
at Error (native)
Console trace:
Error
at StandardRenderer.error (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/renderers/StandardRenderer.js:81:37)
at Logger.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/bin/bower.js:110:26)
at emitOne (events.js:96:13)
at Logger.emit (events.js:188:7)
at Logger.emit (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/bower-logger/lib/Logger.js:29:39)
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/commands/index.js:48:20
at _rejected (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/q/q.js:844:24)
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/q/q.js:870:30
at Promise.when (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/q/q.js:1122:31)
at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/bower/lib/node_modules/q/q.js:788:41)
System info:
Bower version: 1.7.9
Node version: 6.5.0
OS: Darwin 15.6.0 x64
This is where I'm getting stuck. Any help solving this would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

I'm using El Capitan too. I had to delete the directory to manage to make it work.
sudo rm -rf ~/.config/
After trying all of the options, like chown and chmod, the only way was removing the directory. But I don't know if this is the best option.

Answer 2

sudo bower install --allow-root bootstrap