Do not Install Karma Globally

| programming | ci | javascript |

Wow, I spent so long trying to figure out why the hell karma was not working for me, it turns out its because it was installed globally. For instance. In my projects package.json I had:

"scripts": { "test": "karma start karma.conf.js" } ...
When I ran npm test - it told me sh 1: karma not found Every other possible combination also did the same thing. i.e.
node_modules/karma/bin/karma

./node_modules/karma/bin/karma

node ./node_modules/karma/bin/karma

I could totally execute this myself from the shell, so I had no idea what was wrong. Then I finally stumbled upon this GitHub Issue. After uninstalling karma globally, npm uninstall -g karma I was able to run npm test without any issues. I still have no idea why this works or didn't work. But at this point I just want to go back to writing tests.

Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.

Check out some more stuff to read down below.

Most popular posts this month

Recent Favorite Blog Posts

This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.

Articles from blogs I follow around the net

Hacking Workshop for September 2026

I'm pleased to announce that David Rowley will be joining us in September to discuss his talk Optimizing code in the hot path; with examples from tuple deformation. If you're interesting in joining us, please sign up using this form and I will send you an...

via Robert Haas July 31, 2026

One and one thing only

I wanted to show you a year’s worth of messages from my barber’s software, because this is what software should be. No spam, no upsells, no growth hacks, no unwelcome cuteness or puzzling verbosity. It’s so curt and straight to the point it should be set i...

via Unsung July 31, 2026

Pluralistic: Better to beg forgiveness (31 Jul 2026)

Today's links Better to beg forgiveness: Don't ring the doorbell at the house of no unless you absolutely must. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: RIP Poul Anderson; P2P at PC Forum; Waitress handed her own stolen ID by carded dine...

via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow July 31, 2026

Generated by openring