Install npm packages globally without sudo on macOS and Linux

npm installs packages locally within your projects by default. You can also install packages globally (e.g. npm install -g <package>) (useful for command-line apps). However the downside of this is that you need to be root (or use sudo) to be able to install globally.

Here is a way to install packages globally for a given user.

1. Create a directory for global packages

mkdir "$HOME/.npm-packages"

2. Indicate to npm where to store globally installed packages. In your ~/.npmrc file add:

prefix=$HOME/.npm-packages

3. Ensure npm will find installed binaries and man pages. Add the following to your .bashrc/.zshrc:

PATH="$PATH:$HOME/.npm-packages/bin"

See also: npm's documentation on "Fixing npm permissions".