How do I resolve "Cannot find module" error using Node.js?

Question

After pulling down a module from GitHub and following the instructions to build it, I try pulling it into an existing project using:

> npm install ../faye

This appears to do the trick:

> npm list
/home/dave/src/server
└─┬ [email protected]
  ├── [email protected]
  ├── [email protected]
  └── [email protected]

But Node.js can't find the module:

> node app.js
node.js:201
        throw e; // process.nextTick error, or 'error' event on first tick
              ^
Error: Cannot find module 'faye'
    at Function._resolveFilename (module.js:334:11)
    at Function._load (module.js:279:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:357:17)
    at require (module.js:368:17)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/dave/src/server/app.js:2:12)
    at Module._compile (module.js:432:26)
    at Object..js (module.js:450:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:351:31)
    at Function._load (module.js:310:12)
    at Array.0 (module.js:470:10)

I really want to understand what is going on here, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to look next. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Using npm install installs the module into the current directory only (in a subdirectory called node_modules). Is app.js located under home/dave/src/server/? If not and you want to use the module from any directory, you need to install it globally using npm install -g.

I usually install most packages locally so that they get checked in along with my project code.

Update (8/2019):

Nowadays you can use package-lock.json file, which is automatically generated when npm modifies your node_modules directory. Therefore you can leave out checking in packages, because the package-lock.json tracks the exact versions of your node_modules, you're currently using. To install packages from package-lock.json instead of package.json use the command npm ci.

Update (3/2016):

I've received a lot of flak for my response, specifically that I check in the packages that my code depends on. A few days ago, somebody unpublished all of their packages (https://kodfabrik.com/journal/i-ve-just-liberated-my-modules) which broke React, Babel, and just about everything else. Hopefully it's clear now that if you have production code, you can't rely on NPM actually maintaining your dependencies for you.