'gulp' is not recognized as an internal or

Question

I am trying to use Gulp and Node.Js to stream my process for minifying and concatenating CSS/JS files for production.

Here is what I have done.

1. I installed Node.Js on my Windows 7 machine.
2. Installed Gulp globally using this command npm install -g gulp
3. Then I added a new User variable called NODE_PATH set it to %AppData%\npm\node_modules

After closing and re-opening my command line, I tried to run a gulp task from the command line (i.e. gulp css). But that give me the following error

'gulp' is not recognized as an internal or external command

How can I get this to work?

When I opened the following path using the search bar in windows, %AppData%\npm\node_modules I see the following two folders

gulp
gulp-cli

I've tried to add %AppData%\npm\node_modules to the Path variable on my system variable, but it did not take it because that variable reached it's max allowed character limit.

I removed couple of paths from my Path variable and added ;C:\Users\[MyWindowsUserName]\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules

but still not working.

I even tried to set the path at run time using this command

PATH=%PATH%;C:\Users\[MyWindowsUserName]\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules then run gulp and still the same issues.

What am I missing here? What else do I need in order to get this to work?

Answer 1

In my case, this problem occured because I did npm install with another system user in my project folder before. Gulp was already installed globally. After deleting folder /node_modules/ in my project, and running npm install with the current user, it worked.

Answer 2

I had the same problem on windows 7. You must edit your path system variable manually.

Go to START -> edit the system environment variables -> Environment variables -> in system part find variables "Path" -> edit -> add new path after ";" to your file gulp.cmd directory some like ';C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\npm' -> click ok and close these windows -> restart your CLI -> enjoy

Answer 3

I had similar issue when I installed locally initially(w/o -g). I reinstalled with -g (global) and then it worked.

npm install -g gulp

you should run gulp from folder where gulpfile.js is available.

Answer 4

Go to My Computer>Properties>Advance System Settings>Environment Variables>

Under the variables of Administrator edit the PATH variable & change its value to "C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\npm". Note: The username in the path will be the current Admin user's name that you have logged in with.

Answer 5

You need to make sure, when you run command (install npm -g gulp), it will create install gulp on C:\ directory.

that directory should match with whatver npm path variable set in your java path.

just run path from command prompt, and verify this. if not, change your java class path variable wherever you gulp is instaled.

It should work.

Answer 6

I solved the problem by uninstalling NodeJs and gulp then re-installing both again.

To install gulp globally I executed the following command

npm install -g gulp