How to install Angular CLI locally (without the -g flag)

Question

I've just started working with Angular and with Angular-CLI and I've seen that, according to the documentation, I need to install $ npm install -g @angular/cli with the -g (global) flag.

However I would like to have Angular-CLI installed locally with the rest of my node_modules packages. This way, when I've download my project from git, I could simply run $ npm install (for installing all the dependencies in my package.json).

I try to create a new project by running $ npm init and then run $ npm i @angular/cli -D (-D is the same as --save-dev). But then when I run $ ng new project-name a new sub directory was created with a separate node_modules directory.

Solution 1

As some of the comments suggest, you can have a local and global version of angular cli on your system.

To be able to access your local version instead of global (lets say you have a different version installed locally then your global install) use npm run-script ng

for example npm run-script ng generate component SomeCoolComponent

check out this answer on github to a similar question: https://github.com/angular/angular-cli/issues/5955#issuecomment-320273493

Solution 2

TL;DR
Use a package called npx (run npm i -g npx if not already installed) and when you need to create an angular project, just use this command the very first time:
npx -p @angular/cli ng new hello-world-project

Explanation:
So For example if you want to create angular 4 project, modify the above command to include the angular-cli version 1.4.10 like this npx -p @angular/[email protected] ng new hello-world-project and then when your project setup is complete you can go back to using the normal ng generate and other commands.

Angular-cli versions indicate which angular version will be associated with a project & angular-cli 1.4.10 creates angular 4 projects

Edits:

Here is some useful versioning info about which cli creates which angular version.

 CLI version     Angular version

 1.0 - 1.4.x       ^4.0.0
 1.5.x             ^5.0.0
 1.6.x - 1.7.x     ^5.2.0
 6.x               ^6.0.0
 7.x               ^7.0.0

Also, if you want to use latest stable version to create a certain angular project you can just use npx command like this npx -p @angular/[email protected] and it will use cli version 1.7.4 which is the most latest stable version for angular 5.

Check out this SO answer here where some other devs are trying to unfold this mystery.

Solution 3

Short Answer / TLTR

Start your project by specifying the package -p @angular/cli, so node can find the program:

npx -p @angular/cli ng new <project-name>

Long Answer

The npm ecosystem has been moving more and more towards installing tools as project-local devDependencies, instead of requiring users to install them globally. This is considered a good practice. As it allows to use multiple versions (one per project), instead of having one unique global version.

In order to start the project from scratch, you need to point to the package with -p flag (otherwise npx will not find it):

npx -p @angular/cli ng new <project-name>

- npx

npx is a command that is installed together with node and npm, starting version 5.2 (July 2017). Most probably you already have it installed.

npx allows you to run that npm command without having it installed locally. npx will look for the latest version of the specified package (in this case @angular/cli) and run the command ng from the bin folder.

- specific versions

You could also install a specific version of Angular CLI. For example, let's say we need to install version 9.1. We could run:

npx -p @angular/[email protected] ng new <project-name>

- once it is installed

After the Angular CLI installs the project, go to the folder and use the npx ng directly. For example:

npx ng serve

This will search inside the node_modules/.bin/ folder for the ng command, which is a soft link pointing to ../@angular/cli/bin/ng, the locally installed ng command.

Links

• npx
• Angular CLI

Solution 4

To install angular locally:

npm init -y
npm i @angular/cli
npx ng new app-name

To update a locally installed angular version, say bump 8.x to 9.x, you can use

npx ng update @angular/core@9 @angular/cli@9

Solution 5

Just Follow this command

npm install  @angular/cli

It worked for me.

View more solutions

Comments

[Gil Epshtain]

So according to this answer, once I've created a new project using ng new project-name I can delete angular-cli from the global node_models and still be able to use ng generate X (since angular-cli is also installed in the local node_modules?

[jornare]

No, as this is what is first executed when only typing 'ng' (because it is in the PATH variable), but it will look for another version in your current folders node-modules and execute that if it exist.

[jornare]

Try this: install an old version globally (say 1.5.5) typing ng --version will now yield 1.5.5. Install another version locally (say 1.6.0) typing ng --version will now yield 1.6.0. remove the global version. typing ng --version will not execute.

[shadowbq]

npx is now by default installed with 5.2+ of npm the default manager of node.js. This should be a more widely accepted answer in 2018

[Robharrisaz]

This was perfect for my issue which was to be able to execute the local package rather than global on a build server where installing global version is not an option.

[Jennifer S]

The user specifically asked how to do this without using the -g flag.

[Noumenon]

When you say "You can go back to using the normal ng generate", you mean in your other projects, right? In this project, you will have to use npx ng generate.

[Junaid]

No, just use the same ng generate in this project(created using npx) too. No need to disturb npx anymore. In simple words, npx will only be used to create/setup your project with the desired angular version, nothing else. After that just forget about npx.

[McFiddlyWiddly]

is npx -p @angular/[email protected] ng new <project-name> different from npx -p @angular/[email protected] new <project-name>?

[Carlos Morales]

yes they are different. In the first one, you are asking npm to 1) install this package first and then 2) run "ng" command. In the second version you are asking 2) run "new" command, the result will be new: command not found

[Volodymyr Gorodytskyi]

@Junaid thanks for an answer, for experimental purpose I've uninstalled angular cli globally npm uninstall -g @angular/cli, than I created new angular project with npx -p @angular/cli ng new hello-world-project and after running command ng build I get error The term 'ng' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet..., so looks like using npx term is required in this approach.