post-installing node does not work

[cake03]

$ brew postinstall node
==> Postinstalling node
Warning: The post-install step did not complete successfully
You can try again using:
  brew postinstall node

[SMillerDev]

What if you run brew postinstall --debug node?

If that doesn't work, please give the full output of that, and of brew config and brew doctor

[cake03]

export PATH="/usr/local/sbin:$PATH" already exists in ~/.zshrc

[SMillerDev]

How about ls -al /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm?

[cake03]

❯ ls -al /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm
drwxr-xr-x   12 root   wheel   384 Aug  3 XX:XX .
drwxr-xr-x   13 User   staff   416 Aug  6 XX:XX ..
-rw-r--r--    1 root   wheel     0 Mar 24 XX:XX .npmrc
-rw-r--r--    1 root   wheel  9742 Mar 24 XX:XX LICENSE
-rw-r--r--    1 root   wheel  4045 Apr 10 XX:XX README.md
drwxr-xr-x    9 root   wheel   288 Aug  3 XX:XX bin
drwxr-xr-x    4 root   wheel   128 Aug  3 XX:XX docs
drwxr-xr-x   77 root   wheel  2464 Aug  3 XX:XX lib
drwxr-xr-x    5 root   wheel   160 Aug  3 XX:XX man
drwxr-xr-x  232 root   wheel  7424 Aug  3 XX:XX node_modules
-rw-r--r--    1 root   wheel  5752 Aug  3 XX:XX package.json
drwxr-xr-x    3 root   wheel    96 Aug  3 XX:XX tap-snapshots

[kcarnold]

I was helping someone install node yesterday and hit this problem.

• Cause: node_modules got installed by some non-brew method, using sudo, so files are owned by root not the user.
• Resolution: Remove all node-related stuff from /usr/local (including bin, share, include, and lib/node_modules). Use the Finder to move to trash, and it'll ask for password to override the ownership problem.
• Homebrew should provide meaningful error messages here!

[carlocab]

• Homebrew should provide meaningful error messages here!

Yes, agreed. PRs welcome.