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

Question

How do I use a local version of a module in node.js. For example, in my app, I installed coffee-script:

npm install coffee-script

Answer 1

Update: I no longer recommend this method, both for the mentioned security reasons and not the least the newer npm bin command. Original answer below:

As you have found out, any locally installed binaries are in ./node_modules/.bin. In order to always run binaries in this directory rather than globally available binaries, if present, I suggest you put ./node_modules/.bin first in your path:

export PATH="./node_modules/.bin:$PATH"

If you put this in your ~/.profile, coffee will always be ./node_modules/.bin/coffee if available, otherwise /usr/local/bin/coffee (or whatever prefix you are installing node modules under).