NPM Command Not Found After Installing Node - node.js

Question

I am having a very hard time getting the npm command to work, and unfortunately my knowledge of unix isn't good enough to solve this on my own. All I've done is brew install node, and I get the following errors:
When I type npm I get zsh: command not found: npm
Looking into this issue more I found this stack overflow answer:
Command not found after npm install in zsh
Following its advice I tried adding export PATH=/usr/local/share/npm/bin:$PATH to my .zshrc file. Still get the same error when typing npm
I can confirm it is in the path echo $PATH yields /Users/nicholashaley/.rbenv/shims:/Users/nicholashaley/.rbenv/bin:/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin:/usr/local/heroku/bin:/usr/local/share/npm/bin:/usr/local/bin:/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin:/usr/local/heroku/bin:/Users/nicholashaley/.rbenv/shims:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/X11/bin
I can also confirm that node has been installed node -v yields v0.12.2
Any ideas? I'm stumped

Answer 1

Not an answer, but maybe a solution...
Uninstall Node via brew: brew uninstall node
Then download Node from https://nodejs.org/en/download/ and install.
npm should then "just work".

Answer 2

I came across to this thread with the same problem but finally below is what worked for me which is without sudo
$ brew update
$ brew uninstall node
$ brew install node
$ chown -R YourUserName /usr/local/lib/node_modules/
$ brew postinstall node #This what the important step

Answer 3

Ok this is what worked for me:
$ brew update
$ brew uninstall node
$ brew install node
$ sudo brew postinstall node #This what the important step

Answer 4

In case this never got solved, this is what worked for me:
brew uninstall node
brew install node
brew doctor and see what needs to be pruned. My problem was there was a non-brew place where I had changed my install location for npm packages because I was trying to get an npm package to install for me. That was a mistake (having forgotten I initially installed node and npm through brew but now brew could no longer reach the npm install directory nor could it change or delete it). So brew prune didn't work even though the symlinks were supposedly deleted but it reminded me that I had changed the npm install location. And that brings us to:
Delete those directories
brew postinstall node
Hope it helps.

Answer 5

I found this article helpful with step-by-step details:
https://www.dyclassroom.com/howto-mac/how-to-install-nodejs-and-npm-on-mac-using-homebrew
Additionally, after all the steps in above article, node was working but my machine was still giving "command not found: npm". I then ran the following two commands and npm was working.
sudo chown -R myusername:myusergroup /usr/local/lib/node_modules
brew postinstall node

Answer 6

Anyone on the LTS release use the following command instead:
brew postinstall node#6

Answer 7

Issue Details in Gist and how I fixed it
1. Installed nodeJs via nvm using Git Bash
2. Installed hyper terminal & WSL
3. Installed Ubuntu (windows Store) & configured zsh shell.
4. Faced the command not found all over in the zsh shell
5. The same commands are working nicely in the bash shell
Tried sourcing the (node, nvm, npm ) paths in the .zshrc and .profile file &
modified the System & Environment Variables in Windows. None of these steps helped me to resolve the issue.
I think the issue is zsh and bash terminals treat things differently. When Installed in bash terminal the default location for the nodeJs in windows will be set to
C:\Users\Program Files\nodejs
The above one is symlinked to C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\nvm
No matter how much I tried to alias these things in zsh, only node and nvm are working with aliases. npm is failing to locate the necessary lib files.
The only solution that worked for me is Re-installing node in zsh terminal
Removed the node versions installed via nvm in Bash terminal.
Removed the nvm in windows via control Panel
Installed the nvm in the zsh shell
Installed the node latest LTS version from which npm is also installed.
Post Installing the node via nvm in Zsh I observed the following things.
Paths for the node, nvm, npm & npx have been automatically added to the $PATH variable
Node directory is not available neither in C:\Users\Program Files\nodejs
nor the C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming\nvm
Instead it is configured differently at /home/<username>/.nvm/versions/node/v14.15.1/bin/node
This video really helped me in re-installing the node in ZSH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kL8iGErULiw

Answer 8

Usually npm should be found in the same directory as that of the node executable, which can be determined by which node. Check if this directory is part of your PATH. If node was installed through a node version managers such as nodenv and nvm, check the documentation for how to add these executables to the path.
With nodenv, this can be done with:
eval "$(nodenv init -)"