Solve - pm2: command not found error

'Solve - pm2: command not found error' #

Use npx to solve the error "pm2: command not found", e.g. npx pm2 start app.js or install the package globally by running npm install -g pm2 to be able to use the command without the npx prefix.

The fastest way to solve the error is to use the npx command.

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# 👇️ use npx prefix
npx pm2 start app.js

# 👇️ list all running applications
npx pm2 list

Alternatively, you can install pm2 globally.

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# 👇️ install pm2 globally
npm install -g pm2

pm2 start app.js

pm2 list

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# 👇️ if you got permissions error
sudo npm install -g pm2

pm2 start app.js

pm2 list

For other examples of commands, refer to the official npm page of the pm2 package.

If that doesn't help, run the following command:

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npm config get prefix

The command will show you the path where npm puts your globally installed packages. The global packages will be in the bin directory at the specified path.

Look at the PATH environment variable on your operating system and add the path that the npm config get prefix command outputs, if it's not already there.

If that didn't work, try to add the path to the bin folder (from npm config get prefix) to your PATH environment variable and restart your terminal.

For example, on macOS, you can update your path with the following command:

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# make sure path matches with npm config get prefix
export PATH=/usr/local/share/npm/bin:$PATH

And on Windows, the output of the npm config get prefix command will look something like: C:\Users\Your_User_Name\AppData\Roaming\npm.

Edit the environment variable on your machine and add the specified path (replacing the placeholder with your username).

If you are on linux, you can add the output from the npm config get prefix command to your .bashrc file.

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# 👇️ make sure to update the path with the output
# from the command
export PATH="/usr/local/share/npm/bin:$PATH"

If that doesn't help try to reinstall Node.js on your machine and then install pm2 globally by running npm install -g pm2.

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# 👇️ install pm2 globally
npm install -g pm2

pm2 start app.js

pm2 list

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# 👇️ if you got permissions error
sudo npm install -g pm2

pm2 start app.js

pm2 list

Alternatively, you can see how you can fix the permissions error on this page in the official npm docs.