Gulp command not found after install

Question

I installed gulp(globally) and it looks like it worked because it ran this code:

├── tildify@0.2.0
├── interpret@0.3.5
├── pretty-hrtime@0.2.1
├── deprecated@0.0.1
├── archy@0.0.2
├── minimist@0.2.0
├── semver@2.3.2
├── orchestrator@0.3.7 (stream-consume@0.1.0, sequencify@0.0.7, end-of-stream@0.1.5)
├── chalk@0.5.1 (escape-string-regexp@1.0.1, ansi-styles@1.1.0, supports-color@0.2.0, strip-ansi@0.3.0, has-ansi@0.1.0)
├── gulp-util@2.2.20 (lodash._reinterpolate@2.4.1, dateformat@1.0.8-1.2.3, vinyl@0.2.3, through2@0.5.1, multipipe@0.1.1, lodash.template@2.4.1)
├── liftoff@0.12.0 (extend@1.2.1, minimist@0.1.0, resolve@0.7.4, findup-sync@0.1.3)
└── vinyl-fs@0.3.5 (graceful-fs@3.0.2, lodash@2.4.1, mkdirp@0.5.0, strip-bom@0.3.1, vinyl@0.2.3, through2@0.5.1, glob-watcher@0.0.6, glob-stream@3.1.14)

But when I type gulp it says -bash: gulp: command not found

Any idea what's going on?

Answer 1

Not sure why the question was down-voted, but I had the same issue and following the blog post recommended solve the issue. One thing I should add is that in my case, once I ran:

npm config set prefix /usr/local

I confirmed the npm root -g was pointing to /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm, but in order to install gulp in /usr/local/lib/node_modules, I had to use sudo:

sudo npm install gulp -g

Answer 2

I realize that this is an old thread, but for Future-Me, and posterity, I figured I should add my two-cents around the "running npm as sudo" discussion. Disclaimer: I do not use Windows. These steps have only been proven on non-windows machines, both virtual and physical.

You can avoid the need to use sudo by changing the permission to npm's default directory.

---

How to: change permissions in order to run npm without sudo

Step 1: Find out where npm's default directory is.

• To do this, open your terminal and run:
  npm config get prefix

Step 2: Proceed, based on the output of that command:

• Scenario One: npm's default directory is /usr/local
  For most users, your output will show that npm's default directory is /usr/local, in which case you can skip to step 4 to update the permissions for the directory.
• Scenario Two: npm's default directory is /usr or /Users/YOURUSERNAME/node_modules or /Something/Else/FishyLooking
  If you find that npm's default directory is not /usr/local, but is instead something you can't explain or looks fishy, you should go to step 3 to change the default directory for npm, or you risk messing up your permissions on a much larger scale.

Step 3: Change npm's default directory:

• There are a couple of ways to go about this, including creating a directory specifically for global installations and then adding that directory to your $PATH, but since /usr/local is probably already in your path, I think it's simpler to just change npm's default directory to that. Like so: npm config set prefix /usr/local
  • For more info on the other approaches I mentioned, see the npm docs here.

Step 4: Update the permissions on npm's default directory:

• Once you've verified that npm's default directory is in a sensible location, you can update the permissions on it using the command:
  sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(npm config get prefix)/{lib/node_modules,bin,share}

---

Now you should be able to run npm <whatever> without sudo. Note: You may need to restart your terminal in order for these changes to take effect.

Answer 3

You need to do this npm install --global gulp. It works for me and i also had this problem. It because you didn't install globally this package.

Answer 4

If you want to leave your prefix intact, just export it's bin dir to your PATH variable:
export PATH=$HOME/your-path/bin:$PATH
I added this line to my $HOME/.profile and sourced it.

Setting prefix to /usr/local makes you use sudo, so I like to have it in my user dir. You can check your prefix with npm prefix -g.

Answer 5

I had similar problem I did the following steps and it worked.Go to mac terminal and execute the commands,

1.npm config set prefix /usr/local

2.sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(npm config get prefix)/{lib/node_modules,bin,share}

This two commands will set the npm path right and you no longer have to use sudo in npm. Next uninstall the gulp

3. npm uninstall gulp

4. Installl gulp again without sudo, npm install gulp -g

This should work!!