Cannot find module 'coffee-script'

Question

Trying to get a basic site set up with TowerJS as a test, but ran into this error when running the scaffold generator.

Macbook:app john$ tower generate scaffold Post title:string body:text belongsTo:user
{ [Error: Cannot find module 'coffee-script'] code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND' }

module.js:340
    throw err;
          ^
Error: Cannot find module '/Users/john/Sites/tower/app/app/config/shared/application'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:338:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:280:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:362:17)
    at require (module.js:378:17)
    at Function.Tower.Application.Application.reopenClass.instance (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/tower/lib/tower-application/server/application.js:42:15)
    at _.extend.namespace (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/tower/lib/tower-support/shared/shared.js:218:30)
    at GeneratorScaffoldGenerator.Tower.GeneratorResources.buildApp (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/tower/lib/tower-generator/server/resources.js:273:66)
    at GeneratorScaffoldGenerator.Generator (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/tower/lib/tower-generator/server/generator.js:57:23)
    at new GeneratorScaffoldGenerator (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/tower/lib/tower-generator/server/generators/tower/scaffold/scaffoldGenerator.js:21:61)
    at Function.run (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/tower/lib/tower-generator/server/generator.js:22:12)

Answer 1

You need to check NODE_PATH variable against the location given by npm list -g coffee-script.
If empty, npm install -g coffee-script.

Answer 2

You need to check NODE_PATH variable and if it is empty then set it with instructions given here http://www.davidarno.org/2012/02/09/writing-a-node.js-module-in-coffeescript/

Answer 3

This did the trick for me

npm install --save-dev coffee-script

using node v0.10.31

Answer 4

With 2 simple steps, I was able to fix this issue

1. npm cache clean
2. npm install

Hope this helps!

Answer 5

Had similar problem when using grunt, I've removed

node_modules 

folder from my root folder and run

npm install

That fixed my problem

Answer 6

This is a question from 2012. Now it's nearly 2015, and in the meantime, there is now another, new approach for a differerent variation of the problem caused by breaking changes introduced into node and coffeescript.

For coffeescript > v1.7 you must now call

var coffee = require('coffee-script').register();

instead of

var coffee = require('coffee-script');

See this answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/21585379 to this question: How to properly set up Coffeescript with Node.js