webpack-dev-server: command not found error [Solved]

webpack-dev-server: command not found error [Solved] #

To solve the error "webpack-dev-server: command not found", install the package globally by running npm install -g webpack-dev-server and restart your terminal. If the command fails, run it with sudo and make sure the correct PATH is set in your system's environment variable.

Open your terminal and install webpack-dev-server globally by running the following command.

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# 👇️ install webpack-dev-server globally
npm install -g webpack-dev-server

# 👇️ install webpack-dev-server locally to your project
npm install webpack-dev-server --save-dev

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# 👇️ if you got permissions error
npm install -g webpack-dev-server

Alternatively, you can open your terminal in the directory where your webpack.config.js file is and run the command npx webpack serve.

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npx webpack serve --config webpack.config.js

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 webpack-dev-server globally by running npm install -g webpack-dev-server.

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# 👇️ install webpack-dev-server globally
npm install -g webpack-dev-server

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# 👇️ if you got permissions error
sudo npm install -g webpack-dev-server

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

Conclusion #

To solve the error "webpack-dev-server: command not found", install the package globally by running npm install -g webpack-dev-server and restart your terminal. If the command fails, run it with sudo and make sure the correct PATH is set in your system's environment variable.