Eslint cannot find global install

[mickyginger]

Hi there,

So this is something that seems to have happened quite recently. I have installed eslint and eslint-plugin-react globally using npm i -g

I have an .eslintrc file in my home folder like so:

{
  "env": {
    "browser": true,
    "commonjs": true,
    "es6": true,
    "node": true
  },
  "plugins": [
    "react"
  ],
  "extends": ["eslint:recommended", "plugin:react/recommended"],
  "globals": {
    "$": true
  },
  "parser": "babel-eslint",
  "parserOptions": {
    "sourceType": "module",
    "ecmaFeatures": {
      "jsx": true,
      "modules": true
    }
  },
  "rules": {
    "brace-style": "error",
    "camelcase": ["error", { "properties": "never" }],
    "comma-dangle": ["error", "never"],
    "func-call-spacing": ["error", "never"],
    "eqeqeq": "warn",
    "indent": [ "error", 2, { "SwitchCase": 1 } ],
    "key-spacing": [ "error", { "beforeColon": false } ],
    "no-console": "off",
    "no-fallthrough": "warn",
    "prefer-const": "error",
    "quotes": [ "error", "single" ],
    "semi": [ "error", "never" ],
    "react/prop-types": [ 0 ]
  }
}

I get the following error when I try to lint a file from the command line:

Oops! Something went wrong! :(

ESLint: 6.0.1.

ESLint couldn't find the plugin "eslint-plugin-react".

(The package "eslint-plugin-react" was not found when loaded as a Node module from the directory "/path/to/project/folder".)

It's likely that the plugin isn't installed correctly. Try reinstalling by running the following:

    npm install eslint-plugin-react@latest --save-dev

The plugin "eslint-plugin-react" was referenced from the config file in "PersonalConfig".

If you still can't figure out the problem, please stop by https://gitter.im/eslint/eslint to chat with the team.

I appreciate I could probably fix the issue by installing the plugin to devDependencies, but I would like to keep it global.

Any ideas?

[ljharb]

Nothing eslint-related should be global - only installed locally per project. Similarly, you shouldn't have a config in your home dir - a project that doesn't have eslint included in it should not have eslint run on it.

[mickyginger]

Ok fair enough, but in the docs it states:

Install ESLint either locally or globally.
If you installed ESLint globally, you have to install React plugin globally too. Otherwise, install it locally.

Perhaps you could update the docs to make that more clear, if that is the case

[ljharb]

Good call, I've done that in e835aaf

[mickyginger]

I guess the only other use case is IDE or text editor linters. Which is actually my use case. I'm using Atom's linter-eslint package, which allows you to set a global Eslint install.

Ideally if there is not .eslintrc file in the project, I would like to fall back to some reasonable defaults and since I use React a lot, it seems reasonable to do that.

I have had this working before, so I guess I'm wondering if this is a change in the direction of the package, or if something else has changed, perhaps with my config or whatever.

[ljharb]

I'm suggesting that falling back to reasonable defaults is actively harmful - if a project lacks a linting config, anything short of adding linting to the project is hurting the project.

eslint 6 has some changes around it, as noted in eslint's gitter.

[mickyginger]

Perhaps, but what about a company that has a base linter config for all projects. That seems reasonable to me. If the project does not have its own linter config, then fallback to the company's style guide?

I'll check out the changes to eslint 6.

[ljharb]

Then for version tracking, they'd still want to reference that base config in all their projects.

[mickyginger]

I guess so, but only if they are working with someone outside of the company, in which case they would have a local .eslintrc file in the project folder.

If it's an in-house project, everyone is working from the same .eslintrc file, so there would be no need to track that file.

Anyway we're now having a discussion about process, not about eslint or eslint-plugin-react. Clearly eslint now loads plugins locally, and that's all I really needed to know. Closing this issue.

[jektvik]

Why was this closed ? I've just run into the very same issue.
The use case is this, the company doesn't want to add linting to the code repo, but I still want it to run whenever I'm working on the code-base to get whatver utility I can out of it.
Currently looking for a way to tell eslint to look for plugins (react) in the global install folder.

[ljharb]

@jekusz if every developer isn't forced to use the linter, then no developer should be permitted to. Projects that aren't linted, shouldn't be. (all projects should, of course, be linted)

[lffg]

@ljharb , do you know how to lint uncreated files now with ESLint 6.x?

With ESLint 5.x, when I created a new file with VSCode (aka "untitled file"), the linter works properly. But now I need to save that file inside a project with ESLint to lint it.

It is possible to lint that kind of file? This is very useful when I'm editing a simple script.