Installation fails with npm v7

For some reason, npm install -g npq fails during the postinstall script when using Node 14.16.0. In my case Node is installed with nvm, however, the npq install works fine on 14.15.4.

Edit (see update below): npm install -g npq fails during the postinstall script when using npm v7.

Expected Behavior

Installation leads to the usual “Thank you for installing npq… do you want to add aliases?” prompt. This works fine with Node 14.16.1 and npm 6.14.12.

Current Behavior

I’ve tried both a local install (without -g) and the normal global install, with the same result. The prompt text is printed in the middle of the error, before it exits:

npm ERR! path /Users/andron/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/lib/node_modules/npq
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! signal SIGINT
npm ERR! command sh -c node scripts/postinstall.js
npm ERR! Thank you for installing npq! We want to help you make conscious decisions before installing potentially dangerous packages.
npm ERR! To do that, we can alias npm and yarn to npq, so that e.g. `npm install <package>` will first use npq to verify the package and prompt you if it finds any issues.
npm ERR! ? Do you want to add zsh aliases for npm and yarn? (Y/n) 

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/andron/.npm/_logs/2021-04-07T14_08_12_889Z-debug.log

Relevant lines from the debug log:

1016 info run npq@2.0.16 postinstall node_modules/npq node scripts/postinstall.js
1017 info run npq@2.0.16 postinstall { code: null, signal: 'SIGINT' }
1018 timing reify:rollback:createSparse Completed in 670ms
1019 timing reify:rollback:retireShallow Completed in 0ms
1020 timing command:install Completed in 5030ms
1021 verbose stack Error: command failed
1021 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/Users/andron/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/@npmcli/promise-spawn/index.js:64:27)
1021 verbose stack     at ChildProcess.emit (events.js:315:20)
1021 verbose stack     at maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:1048:16)
1021 verbose stack     at Socket.<anonymous> (internal/child_process.js:439:11)
1021 verbose stack     at Socket.emit (events.js:315:20)
1021 verbose stack     at Pipe.<anonymous> (net.js:673:12)
1022 verbose pkgid npq@2.0.16
1023 verbose cwd /Users/andron
1024 verbose Darwin 19.6.0
1025 verbose argv "/Users/andron/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/bin/node" "/Users/andron/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/bin/npm" "install" "-g" "npq"
1026 verbose node v14.16.0
1027 verbose npm  v7.8.0
1028 error path /Users/andron/.nvm/versions/node/v14.16.0/lib/node_modules/npq
1029 error command failed
1030 error signal SIGINT
1031 error command sh -c node scripts/postinstall.js
1032 error Thank you for installing npq! We want to help you make conscious decisions before installing potentially dangerous packages.
1032 error To do that, we can alias npm and yarn to npq, so that e.g. `npm install <package>` will first use npq to verify the package and prompt you if it finds any issues.
1032 error ? Do you want to add zsh aliases for npm and yarn? (Y/n)
1033 verbose exit 1

Your Environment (edited per update):

• Version used: 2.0.16
• Environment name and version:
  • Tested with Node.js v14.16.0, 14.16.1, and 15.14.0,
  • Bug occurs with npm 7.7.6 and 7.8.0 (haven’t tested further)
  • installed with nvm 0.38.0,
  • zsh shell
• Operating System and version (desktop or mobile): macOS catalina 10.15.7

[lirantal]

I think it is possible that npm7 is now allowing the sort of interactivity that the preinstall script in npq is defined.

I recommend that the fix would be to detect if we’re being installed with npm >= 7 and if so to not run that bash script, but instead print to stdout the instructions and recommendation of running that script to get npq added to the shell preferences. We’ll likely maybe need to expose another bin that installs that, something like npq-install-shell

[OmriBarZik]

You can use the npm_config_user_agent variable. this variable contains some info about the system including the npm version.