This is a super common hiccup when you install Angular CLI globally—your terminal only temporarily adds the ng command to your system's PATH during the installation session. When you fire up a new terminal, that temporary PATH change doesn't carry over. Here's how to lock in the fix permanently:

Step 1: Locate where ng is installed #

First, hop back to the terminal where ng serve works, and run this command to get the full path to the ng executable:

which ng

You’ll get output like /usr/local/bin/ng or ~/.nvm/versions/node/v18.17.0/bin/ng—we only need the directory part (e.g., /usr/local/bin or ~/.nvm/versions/node/v18.17.0/bin).

If you installed Angular via npm, you can also get npm’s global prefix directly with:

npm config get prefix

Just add /bin to the end of that result (for example, if the prefix is /usr/local, use /usr/local/bin).

Step 2: Add the directory to your bash PATH permanently #

Since you’re using bash, we’ll edit your bash profile file to make this change stick forever.

1. Open your bash profile in a text editor:

open -e ~/.bash_profile

If the file doesn’t exist yet, create it first with touch ~/.bash_profile.

2. Add this line at the end of the file, replacing [PATH_TO_NG_DIRECTORY] with the directory you found in Step 1:

export PATH="$PATH:[PATH_TO_NG_DIRECTORY]"

For example, if your ng lives in /usr/local/bin, the line becomes:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin"

3. Save the file and close the text editor.

Step 3: Verify the fix #

Either restart your terminal, or run this command to apply the changes right away in your current terminal:

source ~/.bash_profile

Now fire up a new terminal and run ng --version—it should work without the "command not found" error!

Quick note if you switch to zsh later #

If you ever switch to zsh (Mac’s default shell now), you’ll need to edit ~/.zshrc instead of ~/.bash_profile using the exact same steps above.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Jyothi