Runbook: npm install fails with EACCES on ebit-api/node_modules¶

Symptom¶

Running npm install in ebit-api/ on the host machine fails with:

npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, mkdir '/home/ubuntu/ebit/ebit-api/node_modules/.cache'

Or similar permission errors when writing to node_modules/.

Likely cause¶

Older Docker builds ran as root inside the container and bind-mounted the source directory. This left node_modules/ owned by root:root on the host. When you later run npm install as your normal user, npm can't write to root-owned directories.

# Verify ownership
ls -la ebit-api/node_modules/ | head -5
# If you see "root root" instead of your username, this is the cause

Fix¶

# Fix ownership for all three repos
sudo chown -R $(whoami):$(whoami) \
  ebit-api/node_modules \
  ebit-fe/node_modules \
  ebit-admin-fe/node_modules

# Retry
cd ebit-api && npm install

If node_modules/ doesn't exist yet (fresh clone), this error won't occur — just run npm install normally.

For ebit-fe / ebit-admin-fe (pnpm)¶

cd ebit-fe && pnpm install
cd ebit-admin-fe && pnpm install

Same ownership fix applies if you see EACCES errors with pnpm.

Full cleanup (nuclear option)¶

If ownership is deeply nested or mixed:

# Remove and reinstall
sudo rm -rf ebit-api/node_modules
cd ebit-api && npm install

sudo rm -rf ebit-fe/node_modules ebit-fe/.next
cd ebit-fe && pnpm install

sudo rm -rf ebit-admin-fe/node_modules ebit-admin-fe/.next
cd ebit-admin-fe && pnpm install

Prevention¶

The current docker-compose.yml uses named volumes for node_modules inside containers (e.g., node_modules_fe:/app/node_modules) instead of bind-mounting the host directory. This isolates container-owned node_modules from the host.
If you add a new Dockerfile that runs npm install with a bind-mounted source directory, ensure the container user matches the host user (or use a multi-stage build that copies artifacts instead of installing in-place).
Never run sudo npm install on the host — it creates root-owned files that cause this exact problem.