[BUG] NPX does not work outside package directories

[Nicholaiii]

Current Behavior:

When using npx in any directory not initialised with a package.json, npx stops beacause of ENOENT package.json.

Expected Behavior:

npx runs the command regardlessly, like it does in the one shipped with npm@6

Steps To Reproduce:

$ npm i -g npm@7
$ npx jay (anywhere that's not in a package)

Environment:

• OS: Windows 10 1909
• Node: 14.7.0
• npm: 7.0.1

[compulim]

If the package.json is not available on current directory, npx will fail with ENOENT of package.json.

It is okay if package.json is just empty JSON (e.g. after we echo {}>package.json).

Tested with node:alpine image from Docker hub (sha256:90dfaf5) with NPM 7.0.3 and Node.js 15.0.1.

bash-5.0# npx serve
npm ERR! code ENOENT
npm ERR! syscall open
npm ERR! path /home/node/package.json
npm ERR! errno -2
npm ERR! enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/home/node/package.json'
npm ERR! enoent This is related to npm not being able to find a file.
npm ERR! enoent

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2020-10-24T02_26_28_755Z-debug.log
bash-5.0# echo {}>package.json
bash-5.0# npx serve
UPDATE AVAILABLE The latest version of `serve` is 11.3.2
ERROR: Cannot copy to clipboard: Couldn't find the required `xsel` binary. On Debian/Ubuntu you can install it with: sudo apt install xsel

   ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
   │                                              │
   │   Serving!                                   │
   │                                              │
   │   - Local:            http://localhost:80    │
   │   - On Your Network:  http://192.168.0.1:80  │
   │                                              │
   └──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

[jmacura]

I confirm such behaviour on Win 10 1909 with NodeJS 15.0.1.
This is really unpleasant and undesired bug.

I have a repo with directory called examples, where the package.json and its corresponding node_modules reside. Then there is a bunch of subdirectories like examples/full or examples/simple where I used to execute npx webpack etc. Creating empty package.json in each one of them just to make the npx work again seems like a superfluous work-around.

[nlf]

i'm not able to reproduce this with 7.0.5, is this issue still happening for you?

[Nicholaiii]

i'm not able to reproduce this with 7.0.5, is this issue still happening for you?

Updating to npm@7.0.5 gives me another, but seemingly related, error, that is also fixed by making an empty package.json

0 verbose cli [
0 verbose cli   'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe',
0 verbose cli   'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js',
0 verbose cli   'exec',
0 verbose cli   '--',
0 verbose cli   'serve'
0 verbose cli ]
1 info using npm@7.0.1
2 info using node@v15.0.1
3 timing config:load:defaults Completed in 1ms
4 timing config:load:file:C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\npmrc Completed in 0ms
5 timing config:load:builtin Completed in 0ms
6 timing config:load:cli Completed in 1ms
7 timing config:load:env Completed in 0ms
8 timing config:load:file:C:\.npmrc Completed in 0ms
9 timing config:load:project Completed in 1ms
10 timing config:load:file:C:\Users\nic\.npmrc Completed in 1ms
11 timing config:load:user Completed in 1ms
12 timing config:load:file:C:\Program Files\nodejs\etc\npmrc Completed in 0ms
13 timing config:load:global Completed in 1ms
14 timing config:load:cafile Completed in 0ms
15 timing config:load:validate Completed in 0ms
16 timing config:load:setUserAgent Completed in 1ms
17 timing config:load:setEnvs Completed in 1ms
18 timing config:load Completed in 7ms
19 verbose npm-session d7ae2dbc81df89e0
20 timing npm:load Completed in 19ms
21 http fetch GET 304 https://registry.npmjs.org/serve 131ms (from cache)
22 timing arborist:ctor Completed in 1ms
23 timing command:exec Completed in 150ms
24 verbose stack TypeError: could not detect node name from path or package
24 verbose stack     at new Node (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\node.js:114:13)
24 verbose stack     at Arborist.[newNode] (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\arborist\load-actual.js:251:9)
24 verbose stack     at C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\arborist\load-actual.js:214:57
24 verbose stack     at async Arborist.[loadActual] (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\arborist\load-actual.js:116:25)
24 verbose stack     at async exec (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\lib\exec.js:141:16)
25 verbose cwd C:\Users\nic
26 verbose Windows_NT 10.0.18363
27 verbose argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "exec" "--" "serve"
28 verbose node v15.0.1
29 verbose npm  v7.0.1
30 error could not detect node name from path or package
31 verbose exit 1

[nlf]

the log output above shows npm 7.0.1, is that correct? you should be able to update with npm i -g npm@7

[Nicholaiii]

My mistake, the log output shows 7.0.1 because I reverted to 7.0.1, before reporting back, where I also get the error like this now.

[MoSattler]

@Nicholaiii did you get this solved with a newer version? I still have this problem with the latest node (via docker node:15.1.0-alpine)

[Nicholaiii]

@Nicholaiii did you get this solved with a newer version? I still have this problem with the latest node (via docker node:15.1.0-alpine)

No. I am using node@15.1.0 and npm@7.0.9 and the issue persists. Same solution with empty package.json solves it, but it's surely frustrating to have your workflows broken.

[ruyadorno]

@MoSattler @Nicholaiii thanks for the feedback! Could you please share any log files/package.json so that we can figure out why is this problem still happening? 😊

[Nicholaiii]

@MoSattler @Nicholaiii thanks for the feedback! Could you please share any log files/package.json so that we can figure out why is this problem still happening? 😊

Fresh install of Node 15.1.0 and npm i -g npm@7.0.9, that for some (probably unrelated) reason don't work properly.

0 verbose cli [
0 verbose cli   'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe',
0 verbose cli   'C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js',
0 verbose cli   'exec',
0 verbose cli   '--',
0 verbose cli   'serve'
0 verbose cli ]
1 info using npm@7.0.8
2 info using node@v15.1.0
3 timing config:load:defaults Completed in 1ms
4 timing config:load:file:C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\npmrc Completed in 2ms
5 timing config:load:builtin Completed in 2ms
6 timing config:load:cli Completed in 1ms
7 timing config:load:env Completed in 0ms
8 timing config:load:file:C:\.npmrc Completed in 0ms
9 timing config:load:project Completed in 1ms
10 timing config:load:file:C:\Users\nic\.npmrc Completed in 1ms
11 timing config:load:user Completed in 1ms
12 timing config:load:file:C:\Users\nic\AppData\Roaming\npm\etc\npmrc Completed in 0ms
13 timing config:load:global Completed in 0ms
14 timing config:load:cafile Completed in 0ms
15 timing config:load:validate Completed in 1ms
16 timing config:load:setUserAgent Completed in 0ms
17 timing config:load:setEnvs Completed in 1ms
18 timing config:load Completed in 8ms
19 verbose npm-session 2b37324281b4fc0b
20 timing npm:load Completed in 16ms
21 http fetch GET 304 https://registry.npmjs.org/serve 153ms (from cache)
22 timing arborist:ctor Completed in 1ms
23 timing command:exec Completed in 183ms
24 verbose stack TypeError: could not detect node name from path or package
24 verbose stack     at new Node (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\node.js:112:13)
24 verbose stack     at Arborist.[newNode] (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\arborist\load-actual.js:249:9)
24 verbose stack     at C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\arborist\load-actual.js:212:57
24 verbose stack     at async Arborist.[loadActual] (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\@npmcli\arborist\lib\arborist\load-actual.js:116:25)
24 verbose stack     at async exec (C:\Program Files\nodejs\node_modules\npm\lib\exec.js:165:16)
25 verbose cwd C:\Users\nic
26 verbose Windows_NT 10.0.18363
27 verbose argv "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node.exe" "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "exec" "--" "serve"
28 verbose node v15.1.0
29 verbose npm  v7.0.8
30 error could not detect node name from path or package
31 verbose exit 1

There is no package.json, that's the core problem. If I make an empty one like this:
{}
it works fine.

[MoSattler]

@ruyadorno Same problem for me as for @Nicholaiii

I use node in docker.

# Dockerfile
FROM node:15.3.0
RUN npx cowsay Hi!

Output when building is

npm ERR! could not detect node name from path or package

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /root/.npm/_logs/2020-11-25T20_16_16_359Z-debug.log

Complete log

0 verbose cli [
0 verbose cli   '/usr/local/bin/node',
0 verbose cli   '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js',
0 verbose cli   'exec',
0 verbose cli   '--',
0 verbose cli   'cowsay',
0 verbose cli   'Hi!'
0 verbose cli ]
1 info using npm@7.0.14
2 info using node@v15.3.0
3 timing config:load:defaults Completed in 2ms
4 timing config:load:file:/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/npmrc Completed in 0ms
5 timing config:load:builtin Completed in 0ms
6 timing config:load:cli Completed in 1ms
7 timing config:load:env Completed in 1ms
8 timing config:load:file:/.npmrc Completed in 0ms
9 timing config:load:project Completed in 0ms
10 timing config:load:file:/root/.npmrc Completed in 0ms
11 timing config:load:user Completed in 0ms
12 timing config:load:file:/usr/local/etc/npmrc Completed in 0ms
13 timing config:load:global Completed in 0ms
14 timing config:load:cafile Completed in 1ms
15 timing config:load:validate Completed in 0ms
16 timing config:load:setUserAgent Completed in 0ms
17 timing config:load:setEnvs Completed in 1ms
18 timing config:load Completed in 6ms
19 verbose npm-session 48fefec9b9e2616a
20 timing npm:load Completed in 12ms
21 http fetch GET 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/npm 239ms
22 http fetch GET 304 https://registry.npmjs.org/npm 69ms (from cache)
23 http fetch GET 200 https://registry.npmjs.org/cowsay 55ms
24 timing arborist:ctor Completed in 3ms
25 timing command:exec Completed in 68ms
26 verbose stack TypeError: could not detect node name from path or package
26 verbose stack     at new Node (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/arborist/lib/node.js:113:13)
26 verbose stack     at Arborist.[newNode] (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/arborist/lib/arborist/load-actual.js:249:9)
26 verbose stack     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/arborist/lib/arborist/load-actual.js:212:68
26 verbose stack     at async Arborist.[loadActual] (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/arborist/lib/arborist/load-actual.js:116:25)
26 verbose stack     at async exec (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/exec.js:165:16)
27 verbose cwd /
28 verbose Linux 5.8.18-200.fc32.x86_64
29 verbose argv "/usr/local/bin/node" "/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/bin/npm-cli.js" "exec" "--" "cowsay" "Hi!"
30 verbose node v15.3.0
31 verbose npm  v7.0.14
32 error could not detect node name from path or package
33 verbose exit 1

In node 14, it works without a problem.

[MoSattler]

One thing I noticed is that npx now asks you if you want to install a package before it executes it before. I dont think that was the case before.
Maybe, in my case, this interactivity doesnt play along nicely with docker

[ruyadorno]

thanks for the report @MoSattler!

[MohamedLamineAllal]

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open error is not fixed '<absolute_current_directory_path>/package.json

Still have the problem in npm v7.7.6

Using npx in a cwd that is a child of the root directory where package.json reside!

"db:migrate": "cd src/Database && npx knex migrate:latest",

This used to work!

Now give the above error! Not the expected behavior! And it's breaking the usual behavior !