[npm] webpack is not recognized as a internal or external command,operable program or batch file

I am Learning React.js and i am using windows 8 OS.i have navigate to my root folder

1.Created the package.json file by npm init
2. install webpack by npm install -S webpack.now webpack has been downloaded to my modules folder
3. install webpack globally by typing npm install webpack -g
4. i am also having a webpack.config.js in my root folder which contains the source and ouput directory
5. when i type the webpack command i am getting the below error.

webpack is not recognized as a internal or external command,operable program or batch file

This question is related to npm webpack

The answer is


If you have just cloned a repo, you first need to run

npm install

The error your getting will be generated if you are missing project dependencies. The above command will download and install them.


The fix for me was locally installing webpack as devDependency. Although I have it as devDependencies it was not installed in node_modules folder. So I ran npm install --only=dev


I had this issue when upgrading to React 16.12.0.

I had two errors one regarding webpack and the other regarding the store when rendering the DOM.

Webpack Error:

webpack is not recognized as a internal or external command,operable program or batch file

Webpack Solution:

  1. Close related VS Solution
  2. Delete node_modules folder
  3. Deleted package-lock.json
  4. npm install
  5. npm rebuild
  6. Repeated this 2-3 times

Store Error:

Type Store<()> is not assignable to type Store<any, AnyAction>

Store Solution:

Suggestions to update my React version didn't fix this error for me, but irrespective I would recommend doing it.

My code ended up looking like this:

ReactDOM.render(
        <Provider store={store as any}>
            <ConnectedApp />
        </Provider>,
        document.getElementById('app')
    );

As per this solution


I had this same problem and I couldn't figure it out. I went through every line of code and couldn't find my error. Then I realized that I installed webpack in the wrong folder. My error was not paying attention to the folder I was installing webpack to.


Webpack CLI is now in a separate package and must be installed globally in order to use the 'webpack' command:

npm install -g webpack-cli

EDIT: Much has changed. Webpack folks do not recommend installing the CLI globally (or separately for that matter). This issue should be fixed now but the proper install command is:

npm install --save-dev webpack

This answer was originally intended as a "work-around" for the OPs problem.


Better solution to this problem is to install Webpack globally.

This always works and it worked for me. Try below command.

npm install -g webpack

Install WebPack globally

npm install --global webpack

Just run your command line (cmd) as an administrator.


you have to install webpack and webpack-cli in the same scope.

npm i -g webpack webpack-cli

or,

npm i webpack webpack-cli

if you install it locally you need to call it specifially

node_modules/.bin/webpack -v

npm install -g webpack-dev-server will solve your issue


If you create a boilerplate folder for your JS projects so that you can use JS Modules, webpack and Babel are great tools.

Don't install webpack globally and after installing the most recent versions of both, your package.json file will be loaded up and ready to copy for future projects.

Make sure to delete the node_modules folder to decrease file size in your boilerplate folder and then to reinstall node_modules use npm install.

I forgot to run npm install and kept getting this error when trying to run my webpack dev-server until I realized I needed to run npm install to install node_modules and then it worked.


Sometimes npm install -g webpack does not save properly. Better to use npm install webpack --save . It worked for me.


As an alternative, if you have Webpack installed locally, you can explicitly specify where Command Prompt should look to find it, like so:

node_modules\.bin\webpack

(This does assume that you're inside the directory with your package.json and that you've already run npm install webpack.)


npx webpack

It is worked for me. I'm using Windows 10 and I installed webpack locally.


Maybe a clean install will fix the problem. This "command" removes all previous modules and re-installs them, perhaps while the webpack module is incompletely downloaded and installed.

npm clean-install

Add webpack command as an npm script in your package.json.

{
    "name": "react-app",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "scripts": {
      "compile": "webpack --config webpack.config.js"
    }
}

Then run

npm run compile

When the webpack is installed it creates a binary in ./node_modules/.bin folder. npm scripts also looks for executable created in this folder


Try this folks, the cli needs to be updated to the latest version

npm install --save-dev @angular/cli@latest

credit goes go to R.Richards https://stackoverflow.com/a/44526528/1908827


Try deleting node_modules in local directory and re-run npm install.


We also experienced this problem and I like all the answers that suggest using a script defined in package.json.

For our solutions we often use the following sequence:

  1. npm install --save-dev webpack-cli (if you're using webpack v4 or later, otherwise use npm install --save-dev webpack, see webpack installation, retrieved 19 Jan 2019)
  2. npx webpack

Step 1 is a one-off. Step 2 also checks ./node_modules/.bin. You can add the second step as a npm script to package.json as well, for example:

{
   ...
   "scripts": {
      ...
      "build": "npx webpack --mode development",
      ...
   },
   ...
}

and then use npm run build to execute this script.

Tested this solution with npm version 6.5.0, webpack version 4.28.4 and webpack-cli version 3.2.1 on Windows 10, executing all commands inside of a PowerShell window. My nodejs version is/was 10.14.2. I also tested this on Ubuntu Linux version 18.04.

I'd advise against installing webpack globally, in particular if you are working with a lot of different projects each of which may require a different version of webpack. Installing webpack globally locks you down to a particular version across all projects on the same machine.


I got the same error, none of the solutions worked for me, I reinstalled node and that repaired my environment, everything works again.


For me it worked to install webpack separately. So simply:

$npm install
$npm install webpack

I'm not sure why this should be necessary, but it worked.


I've had same issue and just added the code block into my package.json file;

 "scripts": {
   "build": "webpack -d --progress --colors"
 }

and then run command on terminal;

npm run build

This below-given commands worked for me.

npm cache clean --force
npm install -g webpack

Note - Run these commands as administrator. Once installed then close your command prompt and restart it to see the applied changes.