How to use executables from a package installed locally in node_modules?

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UPDATE: As Seyeong Jeong points out in their answer below, since npm 5.2.0 you can use npx [command], which is more convenient.

OLD ANSWER for versions before 5.2.0:

The problem with putting

./node_modules/.bin

into your PATH is that it only works when your current working directory is the root of your project directory structure (i.e. the location of node_modules)

Independent of what your working directory is, you can get the path of locally installed binaries with

npm bin

To execute a locally installed coffee binary independent of where you are in the project directory hierarchy you can use this bash construct

PATH=$(npm bin):$PATH coffee

I aliased this to npm-exec

alias npm-exec="PATH=$(npm bin):$PATH"

So, now I can

npm-exec coffee

to run the correct copy of coffee no matter of where I am

$ pwd
/Users/regular/project1

$ npm-exec which coffee
/Users/regular/project1/node_modules/.bin/coffee

$ cd lib/
$ npm-exec which coffee
/Users/regular/project1/node_modules/.bin/coffee

$ cd ~/project2
$ npm-exec which coffee
/Users/regular/project2/node_modules/.bin/coffee

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