Bower: “command not found” after installation

Question

I seem to be getting the following when I execute npm install bower -g

/usr/local/share/npm/bin/bower -> /usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules/bower/bin/bower
bower@0.8.6 /usr/local/share/npm/lib/node_modules/bower

Unfortunately executing any of the bower commands returns -bash: bower: command not found

which npm returns /usr/local/bin/npm and running which node returns /usr/local/bin/node.

Answer 1

If you used something other than Homebrew (yes, some of us actually did it weird) —like MacPorts, your $PATH could be funky. Binaries may be located in other areas: /opt/local/bin/grunt and possibly /opt/local/bin/npm

Additionally if you use MacPorts to install npm then subsequently install bower, the binary will not be located where you'd expect. It actually ends up in your home directory under .npm/lib/node_modules/bower/bin

Your $PATH should be adjusted in ~/.profile (Mac OS X) to add: $HOME/.npm/lib/node_modules/bower/bin

Source your Bash profile or open a new terminal window and it should be working.

Answer 2

My problem was the Homebrew/node/npm bug found here - https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/3794

If you've already installed node using Homebrew, try:

npm update -gf

Or, if you want to install node with Homebrew and have npm work, use:

brew install node --without-npm
curl -L https://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

Answer 3

If all of the above doesn't work, or you don't seem to understand the answers provided to the question.

I suggest you run the installation commands on your system command prompt and not git-bash, especially if your are on windows 8 or 7.

Answer 4

I assume you installed Node.js through Homebrew, which annoyingly puts installed npm binaries in a place that is usually not in a users path. All you have to do is to add /usr/local/share/npm/bin to your $PATH. You do that by adding export PATH=/usr/local/share/npm/bin:$PATH to your .bashrc/.bash_profile/.zshrc file.

Although I would rather uninstall the Homebrew installed Node.js and install it with the installer from nodejs.org which doesn't have this problem.

This problem is not Bower specific and will be noticeable with any globally installed Node.js binary, eg. grunt, uglify, jshint, etc.

Answer 5

I know this question has been answered and accepted long time ago. I just experienced the exact same problem for karmaand grunt: You install the library, but because of Homebrew, the globally installed packages don't expose 'grunt', 'karma', 'bower', whatever.

Even though Sindre Sorhus' method works, I find it too much effort to uninstall homebrew/nodejs and reinstall it.

Instead I used

npm install -g grunt-bower-cli

and same for the others:

npm install -g grunt-cli
npm install -g karma-cli

Grunt's documentation explains why you need this step:

This will put the grunt command in your system path, allowing it to be run from any directory.

Note that installing grunt-cli does not install the Grunt task runner! The job of the Grunt CLI is simple: run the version of Grunt which has been installed next to a Gruntfile. This allows multiple versions of Grunt to be installed on the same machine simultaneously.

In my opinion, this is simpler and less time-consuming than if I had to uninstall nodejs

Answer 6

i add this

export PATH=$HOME/.node/bin:$PATH

at the end (and new line) of my .bash_profile file( located in user folder). Save it. close and reopen terminal