Where should my npm modules be installed on Mac OS X

Question

I was attempting to upgrade phonegap via npm when I started running into trouble  Long story short  there are two node modules directories on my computer    usr local lib node modules  usr local share npm lib node modules   When I run npm upgrade -g phonegap  it appears that npm updates the copy of the package that resides in  usr local lib node modules  However  if I which phonegap I find that the symlink points to the older installation at  usr local share npm lib node modules   Also  when I attempt to install a stand alone package such as express  the files are installed in the  usr local lib node modules directory  but no symlink to the executable is created in anywhere in my  PATH   Two questions    Which is the proper directory for node modules on Mac OS X  How can I configure npm to link executables in my  PATH when it installs software    Bonus points  Does the method of installing node affect the configuration  There are a lot of options     EDIT  I figured out that symlinks were being created in my  usr local bin  but my  bash profile was setup with  usr local share npm bin ahead of  usr local bin in my  PATH  I vaguely remember adding that path to my profile at some point  but I m not sure why   So the question now becomes  how did I end up with two different node modules directories on my computer and why would I want to have my node modules in the share npm lib subdirectory instead of right in  usr local lib

User · Answer

If you want to know the location of you NPM packages, you should:

which npm // locate a program file in the user's path SEE man which
// OUTPUT SAMPLE
/usr/local/bin/npm
la /usr/local/bin/npm // la: aliased to ls -lAh SEE which la THEN man ls
lrwxr-xr-x  1 t04435  admin    46B 18 Sep 10:37 /usr/local/bin/npm -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js

So given that npm is a NODE package itself, it is installed in the same location as other packages(EUREKA). So to confirm you should cd into node_modules and list the directory.

cd /usr/local/lib/node_modules/
ls
#SAMPLE OUTPUT
@angular npm .... all global npm packages installed

OR

npm root -g

As per @anthonygore 's comment

User · Answer

npm root -g   to check the npm modules global location

User · Answer

Second Thomas David Kehoe  with the following caveat --  If you are using node version manager  nvm   your global node modules will be stored under whatever version of node you are using at the time you saved the module     So    nvm versions node  version  lib node modules

User · Answer

usr local lib node modules is the correct directory for globally installed node modules    usr local share npm lib node modules makes no sense to me  One issue here is that you re confused because there are two directories called node modules    usr local lib node modules  usr local lib node modules npm node modules  The latter seems to be node modules that came with Node  e g   lodash  when the former is Node modules that I installed using npm

[node.js] Where should my npm modules be installed on Mac OS X?

OR

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