Where does npm install packages?

Question

Can someone tell me where can I find the Node.js modules, which I installed using npm?

Answer 1

If you're trying to access your global dir from code, you can backtrack from process.execPath. For example, to find wsproxy, which is in {NODE_GLOBAL_DIR}/bin/wsproxy, you can just:

path.join(path.dirname(process.execPath), 'wsproxy')

There's also how the npm cli works @ ec9fcc1/lib/npm.js#L254 with:

path.resolve(process.execPath, '..', '..')

See also ec9fcc1/lib/install.js#L521:

var globalPackage = path.resolve(npm.globalPrefix,
                                 'lib', 'node_modules', moduleName(pkg))

Where globalPrefix has a default set in ec9fcc1/lib/config/defaults.js#L92-L105 of:

if (process.env.PREFIX) {
    globalPrefix = process.env.PREFIX
} else if (process.platform === 'win32') {
    // c:\node\node.exe --> prefix=c:\node\
    globalPrefix = path.dirname(process.execPath)
} else {
    // /usr/local/bin/node --> prefix=/usr/local
    globalPrefix = path.dirname(path.dirname(process.execPath))

    // destdir only is respected on Unix
    if (process.env.DESTDIR) {
        globalPrefix = path.join(process.env.DESTDIR, globalPrefix)
    }
}