Friday Functions: npm Path

This week’s Friday function is probably the most simplistic in my zsh library. Every time I worked with node.js I always got a little annoyed with having to reference the command line apps referenced under ./node_modules/bin. Sure, I could do an npm install -g but I don’t like mucking with my global environment on a per project basis. Python has virtualenvs which separate these concerns pretty well but to my knowledge node.js has no equivalent.

function npm_path(){
  export PATH="$(npm bin):$PATH"
}

So my zshrc has contained this function for quite some time.

Now I just run npm path from the root of a node.js project to quickly add its bin directory to my path. I’m sure there are probably more elegant solutions these days… please let me know in the comments!