gulp command not found - error after installing gulp

Question

I've installed Gulp both globally and locally using

npm install gulp
npm install gulp -g
npm install gulp-util
npm install gulp-util -g

When try to run gulp I get

'gulp' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or batch file.

Running npm list gulp (or -g), I [email protected] with the location of either my global or local gulp installation.

I've tried running node gulpfile.js pointed to my gulp file, and it runs without error, and of course, it starts with require('gulp').

Any suggestions on getting Gulp working on Windows(8.1)?

Protomorphic

I'm not using gulp on windows, but have you tried npm install gulp --save-dev ? – Shibboleth

@Shibboleth that will not solve it – Kitchenmaid

@Protomorphic did my answer solve your question? Please mark it if so – Kitchenmaid

I was having this issue until I removed node.js COMPLETELY and reinstalled/restarted my computer. I was getting all sorts of weird errors from my node plugins. – Swine

I encountered this problem recently: turns out the only thing that I forgot was to add the folder where the executable gulp program lies to the Windows %PATH% variable. In my case: %AppData%\Roaming\npm – Holoenzyme

This will solve the problem https://mcmap.net/q/110358/-gulp-command-not-found – Mcmaster

If you're on Windows and gulp is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file try running gulp.js instead. I'm working on a laravel project, and running gulp locally. Also use something other then Windows command prompt, because you will probably get an error with gulp.js. I am using Git bash, and it works perfectly. – Dedal

On my side, it was a "permission to run script" that was not enabled on my computer. Source : octetmalin.net/windows/scripts/… (french) Had to run ` set-executionpolicy unrestricted ` in the powershell in admin mode to fix the issue. – Tannate

Dropping an additional comment here for Windows users. After all these suggestions, if you're using Git Bash, try PowerShell instead. For some reason Git Bash refuses to work while PowerShell does. – Dialectal

Answer 1

You forgot to install the gulp-cli package:

npm install -g gulp-cli

Then you can run the command "gulp" from the command line.

Tel

Yeah, after the registery change didn't work this did the trick : ' ) – Backsight

This piece wasn't even included in our artifactory to grab, so couldn't get it to install it. – Pleasurable

This fixed the problem for the "Learn Bootstrap 4 Final in 2018 with our Free Crash Course" tutorial. I will put a link to this answer in that guys tutorial for others who might have the same problem – Kanchenjunga

Not good solution for my case. I am using azure pipelines with self hosted agent. I don't want to install the gulp globally because different projects may require different versions of gulp. What options do I have? Please help – Unvoiced

It's tough coming back to legacy projects like this where you can't remember how they work. Thanks, saved me some time. – Puduns

Answer 2

The issue and answer can be found in this question: https://mcmap.net/q/108865/-nodejs-cannot-find-installed-module-on-windows

The npm modules such as gulp are not installed to the path. Thus are not found when you run them in the CMD.

If gulp has been installed globally, you can use the process below:

1. Create an environmental variable called NODE_PATH
2. Set it to: %AppData%\npm\node_modules or %AppData%\npm on windows 8-10
3. Close CMD, and Re-Open to get the new ENV variables

Running npm ls and npm ls -g shows that they are installed, but the CMD can not find them due to the missing link.

Kitchenmaid

I think that it's important to note, however, that the answer provided DOES NOT WORK if gulp has not been installed globally. the %AppData%\npm folder is completely empty on initial installation and if you only install gulp in a project folder without using -g, it doesn't put the batch file in \npm\ or its files in \npm\node_modules . So in reality BOTH answers here are necessary. – Favors

I tried this and it still didn't work for me until I realised my "Path" environment variable name was in camel case and not "PATH" (in upper case). I modified "Path" to "PATH" and added my npm directory to the beginning as in @CIAODO 's answer. For some reason "%AppData%\Roaming\npm didn't work for me so I had to use the full path: "C:\Users\[user.name]\AppData\Roaming\npm;". Combined with this answer it worked for me. – Indigestion

%AppData%\Roaming\npm didn't work for me too, also had to use the full path: "C:\Users[user.name]\AppData\Roaming\npm;" – Haemophilic

adding %AppData%\npm to PATH worked for me (Windows 10) – Board

I tried this but it didn't work but after I restarted my pc, it worked. Don't know what happened. – Barnaul

@Board that worked for me as well on win10, whereas the other steps did not. gulp had been working fine for me until today, not sure what changed. – Safety

If you're using the terminal Git Bash, it's not aware of %AppData%\Roaming\npm but instead I added this to ~/.bash_profile: export PATH=$PATH:/c/Users/MyUsername/AppData/Roaming/npm and it found gulp after doing: source ~/.bash_profile – Holohedral

@Holohedral you are telling me that windows now supports only half of bash? lol! Thanks for commenting, if others have the same issue I'll add it to my answer. – Kitchenmaid

Can use the setx command to achieve it; setx NODE_PATH %AppData%\npm (Windows 10). And I realized I didn't have the necessary packages installed globally, so be sure to use the npm install -g <package_name> to populate the node_modules folder in the NODE_PATH – Licensee

I am using azure pipelines with self hosted agent. I don't want to install the gulp globally what options do I have? Please help. – Unvoiced

@RajeshSwarnkar Use the node_modules installed bin file: ./node_modules/.bin/gulp – Kitchenmaid

Answer 3

1. Be sure that you have gulp and gulp.cmd (use windows search)
2. Copy the path of gulp.cmd (C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Roaming\npm)
3. Add this path to the Path envirement variable or edit PATH environment variable and add %APPDATA%\npm
4. Reopen cmd.

Add %APPDATA%\npm to front of Path, not end of the Path.

Kept

Add %APPDATA%\npm to front of Path, not end of the Path. – Palliasse

Thank you @CIAODO! my path had crap from an earlier node install for testing purposes and you comment helped me track it down.`:) – Conviction

It just stopped working for me suddenly, I think after I changed some other PATH variables. Your first solution was the only one that worked for me. Thanks. – Espadrille

Answer 4

1. Install gulp globally.

   npm install -g gulp

2. Install gulp locally in the project.

   npm install gulp

3. Add below line in your package.json

   "scripts": { "gulp": "gulp" }

4. Run gulp.

   npm run gulp

This worked for me.

Grivation

After doing Step 4, it did not run for me - it just returned back another command line prompt after doing nothing (visible, at least). If I did just gulp after that, then it ran. – Pleasurable

Brilliant. This was the solution to my failing build process that relied on Gulp in AppVeyor . Rather, I used something like "package": "gulp build". – Decasyllable

But its not a permanent solution, I need to revert these changes before pushing code, because on others contributor this changes makes builds failed due to conflict :( – Damian

This is not good solution. As I am using a self hosted agent in azure pipeline, I don't want to install the gulp globally as different projects may require different versions of gulp. – Unvoiced

Answer 5

I am using Windows 8.1. I had the same problem.

I installed gulp using Node.js command prompt

npm install -g gulp

Then go to the required directory in Node.js command prompt and try

gulp -v

If you get gulp local version not found exit the current Node.js command prompt and try the above command in a new Node.js command prompt

I tried the NODE_PATH mentioned by @SteveLacy but the command prompt was still not able to detect gulp command

Gasconade

I'm not the downvoter, but I think your answer is not solving (or trying to solve) the problem. – Raggedy

not working, OP mentioned that this has been tried. I ran into the same issue, tried it and it does not fix the issue. – Hume

Does it provide answer? Well, it solved my issue! thanks a lot – Harbot

There isn't even an answer in this. This was the question in the first place. – Ohmage

This is the solution that worked for me. Haters gonna hate. – Staple

This was the solution that worked for me on my Windows Surface Book, when installing a local version of gulp. Thanks! – Porcupine

Answer 6

Had the same problem, not really best solution but install it globally:

npm install -g gulp

Of course it's best to still have it in package.json, so you can do the following to install it locally and add an entry into package.json:

npm install --save-dev gulp

Everything else (gulp plugins) install also locally.

Punchboard

Answer 7

The simple solution just do npm link gulp

Ironworker

what is this doing under the hood? – Buttaro

Looks like a symbolic link – Snuffy

Answer 8

I was having the same problem when trying to get gulp working on a co-workers VM. It seems the problem stems from the users folder.

Adding NODE_PATH in my environment variables didn't fix the problem.

If you edit your 'Path' variable in your system variables and add '%APPDATA%\npm' at the end of that, it should fix the problem... Unless you or somebody else npm installed gulp as another user than the one you're currently logged in as.

If you want it to be available for all users, put 'C:\Users\yourUser\AppData\Roaming\npm'(or where ever you have gulp) explicitly instead of using '%APPDATA%\npm'. You can also move the files to a more user-indifferent path.

Don't forget to start a new cmd prompt, because the one you have open won't get the new 'Path' variable automatically.

Now 'gulp'.

Eurythmics

Answer 9

One right way:

1. Win + R : type "%appdata%"
2. Go to npm folder
3. Copy whole path like "C:\Users\...\npm"
4. Go to "My Computer" + Right Click "Properties"
5. Open "Advanced System Settings" (On the left)
6. Click on "Environment Variables"
7. Click on "Edit Path"
8. Add that "C:\Users\...\npm" to the end and type ";" after that
9. Click ok, reopen cmd and try npm command again

Halifax

I think things are good explained here and it should be the first thing to try when you see gulp' is not recognized on windows – Raggedy

the main thing is to add ";" at the end. otherwise it won't work – Pattypatulous

cmd+R, do u mean winkey+R – Mailer

Answer 10

You should first install gulp as global using:

npm install gulp -g

Otherwise the path solution will not resolve the problem.

Then add the npm modules path to the PATH using:

PATH = %PATH%;%APPDATA%\npm

Ladon

Is the information you've added new and distinctly different from what the other 33 answers give? My impression is 'No', in which case, you probably shouldn't have added the answer. – Kimball

I've tried many of them without success and i've figured out the need to install gulp globaly so to avoid anyone else the same pain i've added this answer – Ladon

Answer 11

In my case it was that I had to install gulp-cli by command npm -g install gulp-cli

Candiot

Answer 12

Try to add to your PATH variable the following:

C:\Users\YOUR_USER\AppData\Roaming\npm

I had the same problem and I solved adding the path to my node modules.

Grecian

Answer 13

I had a similar problem setting it up in windows 10. My answer is windows specific (look at the answers for modifying path in bash for a linux or OSX solution)

The core problem I had was that npm's folder was not registered in the path. I originally tried changing this in cmd prompt.

setx path "%path%;%appdata$\npm"

Note that I used setx instead of set to ensure that the update to the environmental variable remains. Also note that it's a backslash.

This should work but for me it didn't because setx has a limit of only accepting 1024 characters... (yes it's nonsensical to me as well).

So try the above and if you get a warning like did about reaching the 1024 limit, then you can do the other way I ended up doing.

First while youre still in the console, type: echo %appdata%\npm ... this is your npm folder that you want to add to the path so add it to your clipboard.

You have to go into the registry and reach the following folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

Then append the 'Path' value with the npm folder path in your clipboard. Reboot to activate the new value and you should now be good to go.

Finally, just test it all out

>npm install -g gulp
>gulp

Marimaria

Yes!!! Finally! I have looked all over for something to help. Almost all of the answers say to install it globally and it should work. I've installed, uninstalled, reinstalled, cleared cache, etc. At last, this worked. Thank you! – Exile

@Josh, glad I could get you running. Setting up an environment is a b*tch. I think I switched over to mac mostly because of these little quirks when using windows shell. – Marimaria

The worst part is that I've had it set up for months. It's been running fine. Then I'm programming one day and my commands aren't recognized. I search the Internet for anything that will help. Everyone says the same thing. Then you come along and BAM! It works. I understand why you would switch to OSX. I've never had these kind of quirks with OSX before. But I'm too committed to Windows. – Exile

well to your benefit, I believe windows 10 is adopting native bash shell. Should make life a LOT easier for some of these tools. – Marimaria

This work for me in Windows Server 2008, thank you so much! – Rookery

Answer 14

This ended up being a 'user' issue with me. I had installed npm and node on the system logged in as user1, then I set-up user2. I could run node, and I could run npm commnds, but could not run any npm packages from the command line.

I uninstalled node and npm, and reinstalled under the correct user in order to solve the problem. After that I can run packages from the command-line without issue.

Protomorphic

The same for me, the other answers didn't work - reinstalling node and npm did the job – Gannes

Answer 15

The top answer did not work for me.

I am using a virtual machine that had a previous owner. The previous owner had an old version of npm installed. Using that, I was installed gulp globally with npm install -g gulp. Running the command gulp would return 'gulp' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.. As I said, the top Answer did not fix my problem. I basically had to reinstall nodejs.

Solution

1. Re-download nodejs
2. npm install -g gulp
3. gulp -version

This fixed the problem for me.

Bacon

I recommend using nvm for switching node versions: github.com/creationix/nvm – Unconformity

@chrisyo8989 - awesome.. this worked for me without the environmental vars Thanks! I hate messing with those! – Lucarne

I reinstalled nodejs (repair mode) and after that gulp npm install -g gulp and without a restart it worked - YES. WIndows 10. – Abomasum

Answer 16

I had v0.12.3 of Nodejs on Win7 x64 and ran into similar issues when I tried installing gulp. This worked for me:

1. Uninstalled Nodejs
2. Installed Nodejs v0.10.29
3. npm install -g npm
4. npm install -g gulp

Heuser

I used just npm install -g npm and npm install -g gulp and things go back to normal – Raggedy

I recommend using nvm for switching node versions: github.com/creationix/nvm – Unconformity

Answer 17

The NodeJS installer appears to add the user/AppData/Roaming/npm path to the user environment path, which is appropriate.

Normally, the PATH environment variable at the command line is the combination of the user environment path and the system environment path.

However, if the user environment path + the system environment path is larger than about 1920 characters, Windows does not not combine the user and system paths - only the system environment path is used.

See: https://mcmap.net/q/111527/-system-versus-user-path-environmental-variable-winmerge-works-only-if-i-add-the-path-to-the-user-path

So, when you open the Advanced System Settings in Windows to edit your environment variables, take a look to see if the user/AppData/Roaming/npm path is already in your user environment PATH. If it is, then the problem is that your user + system paths are too long, causing Windows to ignore your user path. Trim your user and/or system path strings and gulp should work as installed.

If you can't find anything to trim away from your user and system paths, then add the user/AppData/Roaming/npm path to the system environment path and call it a hack.

Tila

I have spent hours trying to get the gulp command working in windows, and this was what finally worked for me. So thank you! – Peterpeterborough

Answer 18

This works for me:

 npm link gulp
 npm update

Cozza

This was what fixed the issue for me on Windows 7. – Jarvey

Answer 19

I was facing the same problem after installation. So i tried running cmd with elevated privileges (admin) and it worked.

Screen capture:

Sandrasandro

Administrator mode in CMD did it for me – Dearborn

I tried everything else. But once I ran command prompt in administrator mode it worked for me. – Zeidman

Odd - should not require admin privileges. This might work for some, but something else is wrong (not related to Gulp) if it requires this. – Pleasurable

Answer 20

Add this path in your Environment Variables PATH C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\npm\

Ginkgo

Answer 21

(Windows 10) I didn't like the path answers. I use choco package manager for node.js. Gulp would not fire for me unless it was:

1. Globally installed npm i -g gulp and local dir npm i --save-dev gulp

2. The problem persisted beyond this once, which was fixed by completely removing node.js and reinstalling it.

I didn't see any comments about local/global and node.js removal/reinstall.

Swine

Answer 22

This is most commonly because it is not found on environment variables as others have pointed out. This is what worked for me.

echo %PATH%

This will show you what's one your PATH environment variable. If node_modules is not there there do the following to add it from your APPDATA path.

PATH = %PATH%; %APPDATA%\npm

Bryophyte

That's the only correct answer here. Either set a NODE_PATH variable AND add it to the PATH variable or directly add the global npm folder to your PATH variable. – Fairweather

Answer 23

I resolved it by adding C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Roaming\npm to PATH and not C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules

Livelong

This solution was already posted in December 2014. – Overstrung

Answer 24

I already had the one condition from this answer (I don't know why)

https://mcmap.net/q/109643/-gulp-command-not-found-error-after-installing-gulp

That is, my PATH already included %APPDATA%\npm

In my case, the problem was npm was not installing modules there (again, I don't know why)

Therefore I needed to do this:

$ npm config set prefix -g %APPDATA%/npm

After that, running $ npm install -g gulp (or installing any other module) put the module in the place where PATH expects it.

Licensee

Answer 25

In windows:

1. Using your windows explorer, Navigate to your vagrant shared folder (I am using scotchbox by the way) e.g C:\scotchbox/public/gulpProject
2. In the address bar of the folder, type cmd and press Enter
3. Do your gulp installation npm install

Portage

Answer 26

On my Windows 10 Enterprise, gulp was not installed in %AppData%, which is C:\Users\username\AppData\npm\node_modules on my machine, but in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\npm\node_modules.

To get gulp to be picked up at the command prompt or in powershell, I added to the user PATH the value C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\npm. After that it worked like a charm. Naturally I had to close the command prompt or powershell window and re-open for the above to take effect.

Secondguess

Answer 27

Had gulp command not found problem in windows 10 and Adding "%AppData%\npm\node_modules" doesn't work for me. Do this steps please:

After doing

npm install -g npm

And

npm install -g gulp

Add

C:\Users\YourUsername\npm

to Path in System Variables.

It Works for me after all solutions failed me.

Administrate

Answer 28

Run npm install gulp -g

if you are using windows, please add the gulp's dir to PATH.

such like C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\gulp

Unconquerable

Answer 29

In short:

You should add %NODE_PATH% to the system variable Path if the other answers don't work.

The reason:

The point is, command prompt only executes programs under the Path system variable, not the user variables. If you have NODE_PATH set as a user variable, add %NODE_PATH% to Path.

---

I asked here and got marked duplicate for a question with different intention :(

NPM Windows doesn't execute program under the User Variable path [duplicate]

Elfrieda

Answer 30

In Windows:

1. Press the following two keys: Windows + r
2. Type control /name microsoft.system into the run dialog box that appears from the previous step.

3. Select Advanced System Settings from the left of the window pane
4. Click the Advanced tab on the system properties box that appears and click the Environment Variables button.
5. Edit the PATH User environment variable.
6. Click New on the edit environment variable window that pops up for the PATH variable and add the following: %APPDATA%\npm to the start of the PATH environment variable (as shown in the image below).

7. Close your Command Prompt and reopen it.

Raychel

Answer 31

Navigate to where you installed node modules in cmd up to .bin folder, then run gulp. I.e. path\node_modules.bin>>gulp
This worked for me excellently. My path was C:\wamp\www\wyntonv2\node_modules.bin

Crt

Answer 32

If you need to install a global version gulp as described on the gulpjs.com site and still have issues, you may need to clean npm's cache. For instance, if you have previously installed gulp and managed to blow it away by accident, it may not install properly again because it's looking for directories that no longer exist. In which case, run:

sudo npm cache clean

Then install gulp as you normally would.

Limewater

Answer 33

In my case, none of the approaches listed worked. I finally downloaded Rapid Environment Editor (ver 8).

It showed that my additions to the user environment variables weren't present. When I added them with REE, everything worked immediately.

(Running Windows 8.1)

Subservient

Answer 34

I have come across this issue. I fixed this by adding %APPDATA%/npm to Path Environment variable. I didn't define NODE_PATH variable still it worked for me. Hope this works for others!!

Snakebird

Answer 35

1. When you've installed gulp global, you need to go to

   C:\nodejs\node_modules\npm\npm

2. There you do

   SHIFT + Right Click

3. Choose "Open command prompt here"

4. Run gulp from that cmd window

Reseat

Answer 36

Nothing Worked for me except

Run powershell as administrator and executing Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned.

For More Detail : PowerShell says "execution of scripts is disabled on this system."

Rathskeller

Answer 37

Run Power-shell as administrator.

then run this command

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Use with CAUTION

Rathskeller

Answer 38

Above solution are awesome, but here I want to share an solution for Existing Project in which this issue got reported many times due to which we use to reinstall Gulp and all.

Environment for Issue:-

• Current OS:- Windows 10 x64 bit.
• Working with Gulp Project with previous version of Node v10.24.0 and now not working with Node v14.15.0.

Solution:-

• First Option:- Changed in Node Version of the Project Directory from v14.15.0 to v10.24.0 and than Gulp Command runs fine.

• Second Option:-. Reinstall all the Packages and Gulp with Current Version of Node v14.15.0.

Hope this would be helpful to anyone.

Sainted

Answer 39

So I haven't seen this answer yet, and that NODE_PATH and all these other so-called environment variable fixes didn't do anything, so I thought I'd add my brute force way of getting this to work:

Obviously you install the latest node.js and do npm install. I also had to upgrade some dependencies first (was getting warnings on these when I tried to install gulp, and before I ran these commands it was telling me it was missing the popper.js dependency Bootstrap 4 required - even though it was actually ok in that department!):

npm install -g minimatch (Enter)

npm install -g graceful-fs (Enter)

I saw when I did npm install -g gulp, again, though (and it was failing to run), it was putting it in C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules

So because I was running gulp from a command line that was cd'd to my project folder in: C:\Users\myname\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\myproject

I doubt it knew anything about that other location. Also my package.json didn't have:

"scripts":{
    "gulp": "gulp"
 }

Instead, it had:

"scripts":{
    "start": "gulp"
 }

So it could not run gulp, anyway, even if it had been installed to the project. I guess at this point maybe if I had ran start instead of gulp, it might've worked, but so I added a comma after "gulp" and another line:

"scripts":{
    "start": "gulp",
    "gulp": "gulp"
 }

Then I copied the gulp folder from C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\gulp to C:\Users\myname\Documents\Visual Studio 2015\Projects\myproject\node_modules\gulp

and it worked fine after that.

Pleasurable

Answer 40

None of the given answers didn't worked for me. Because my issue was the gulp commands are blocked by Antivirus. I had installed the Gulp both globally and locally successfully. Mine is Kaspersky antivirus and once i allowed gulp in the antivirus firewall it works like a charm.

En

Answer 41

1. npm install -g gulp
2. Add environment variables in windows: enter image description here

Woodcraft