macos - npm command - sudo or not?

Question

Currently I always run sudo npm install <package-name> but as I understand it's not correct.

I want to have opportunity not to use it as root/Administrator. I followed some advice and used this command sudo chown -R <username> ~/.npm but it won't work...

for example, it's an output of my npm install jade

...
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/amdefine
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/amdefine/-/amdefine-0.0.5.tgz
npm http 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/amdefine/-/amdefine-0.0.5.tgz
npm ERR! Error: EACCES, symlink '../jade/bin/jade'
npm ERR!  { [Error: EACCES, symlink '../jade/bin/jade'] errno: 3, code: 'EACCES', path: '../jade/bin/jade' }
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.

as you see download started successfully but then failed..

I'm wondering what is the best way to disallow sudo on npm?

Answer 1

It's possible (and advisable) to npm install -g node modules without sudo.

Check the permission of your /usr/local/share/npm/bin folder. I had installed node and npm through brew (without sudo) and that particular folder ended up being owned by root.

This fixed it for once and for all:

$ sudo chown $(whoami) /usr/local/share/npm/bin

(As for disallowing sudo with npm: you'd have to tweak npm for that. Your own node code could make use of https://npmjs.org/package/sudo-block, npm install sudo-block)

EDIT: even though this works, I no longer use -g. Instead use prefix (see next answer), or better yet use NIX https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/381797 (even on OSX)