#+title: Global Install NPM Packages on GNU Guix
#+date: <2025-12-05 18:21>
#+description: How to make npm install --global work on Guix
#+filetags: web guix
#+ATTR_HTML: :border 2 :rules all :frame border

This post is not exactly a tutorial, but rather a record for myself. I've already needed to configure npm on Guix a few times and, inevitably, I ended up forgetting the steps when I installed the system again. To avoid wasting time in the future, I leave here the procedure that always solves the problem for me.

When trying to install packages globally with npm, the error is usually this:

#+BEGIN_SRC
home@user ~/workspace/dump$ npm i --global @volar/typescript
npm error code ENOENT
npm error syscall mkdir
npm error path /gnu/store/7wn5cq17bjndjxqpzlp6icyyyfxz36bf-node-22.14.0/lib/node_modules/@volar
npm error errno -2
npm error enoent ENOENT: no such file or directory, mkdir '/gnu/store/...'
npm error enoent This is related to npm not being able to find a file.
npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /home/user/.npm/_logs/2025-12-05T18_11_26_115Z-debug-0.log
#+END_SRC

The problem happens because Guix, like NixOS, keeps the /gnu/store directory immutable. npm tries to write there and fails. The practical solution is to redirect global packages to a directory in $HOME.

*** Step by step

#+BEGIN_SRC
# Create a directory for global packages:
mkdir ~/.npm-global
  
# Configure npm prefix:
npm config set prefix '~/.npm-global'
  
# Add the new path to PATH:
export PATH="$HOME/.npm-global/bin:$PATH"
  
# Confirm that the configuration has been applied:
npm config get prefix
/home/user/.npm-global
  
# Install the desired package:
npm install -g @volar/typescript
added 5 packages in 1s
#+END_SRC

There are other ways around this limitation, but working with npm (and other package managers) in Guix can be a bit of a pain. This simple adjustment is often enough to avoid headaches in most cases.