Is it possible to have a node_modules directory shared between projects - node.js

Question

I have a project setup that is as follows:
workspace
└cache
└node_modules
└gulp (and gulp-plugins, express etc.)
└nodejs
└node.exe
└project1
└gulpfile.js
└project2
└gulpfile.js
Now I want to execute the gulpfile in the project directories:
set NODE_PATH='C:\workspace\cache\node_modules\'
cd C:\workspace\project1\
C:\workspace\nodejs\node.exe C:\workspace\cache\node_modules\gulp\bin\gulp.js watch
and I get the following output:
[12:06:04] Local gulp not found in C:\workspace\project1
[12:06:04] Try running: npm install gulp
In both project folders the gulpfile is similar and uses a similar set of plugins. I'd really like to have the dependencies only once (because potentially I have up to 25 projects sharing the same node_modules).
Is this setup possible, or does the seperate project directories need to have their own node_modules folders?

Answer 1

Gulp requires you to have both a global installation as well as a local one. So you need to have your Gulp relatively to your Gulpfile. If your package.json would be located in workspace and your node_modules would be in workspace/node_modules everything would work fine because of Node's search tree, but if you can't move them, the only way to make it work is to "fake" the node_modules folder.
You can do this by creating a symbolic link.
Here's on Unix/Linux/Mac:
ln -s ../cache/node_modules node_modules
Here's on Windows
mklink /D node_modules ../cache/node_modules
(the latter one might work different, I'm not on a Win machine)

Answer 2

You could also try pkglink
From description:
Space saving Node.js package hard linker. pkglink locates common JavaScript/Node.js packages from your node_modules directories and hard links the package files so they share disk space.

Answer 3

Edit: ddprt
On Windows
mklink /D node_modules "C:/fullPATH/cache/node_modules"

Answer 4

you could always use the '-g' parameter with npm install 'package-name', so as to make the module available globally to access across different projects.
See the following links
what does the "-g" flag do in the command "npm install -g <something>"?
How do I install a module globally using npm?
https://docs.npmjs.com/files/folders
Packages are dropped into the node_modules folder under the prefix. When installing locally, this means that you can require("packagename") to load its main module, or require("packagename/lib/path/to/sub/module") to load other modules.
Global installs on Unix systems go to {prefix}/lib/node_modules.
Global installs on Windows go to {prefix}/node_modules (that is, no
lib folder.)
Scoped packages are installed the same way, except they are grouped
together in a sub-folder of the relevant node_modules folder with the
name of that scope prefix by the # symbol, e.g. npm install
#myorg/package would place the package in
{prefix}/node_modules/#myorg/package.