npm install -g fails with EACCES / permission denied

Symptoms

• npm install -g openclaw@latest fails with EACCES / permission denied.
• Errors mention mkdir in a root-owned directory (common on Linux).

Cause

Your npm global prefix points to a directory that requires root permissions, so global installs fail unless you use sudo (not recommended).

Fix

Switch npm’s global prefix to a user-writable directory:

mkdir -p "$HOME/.npm-global"
npm config set prefix "$HOME/.npm-global"
export PATH="$HOME/.npm-global/bin:$PATH"

Persist the export PATH=... line in your shell startup file (zsh: ~/.zshrc, bash: ~/.bashrc), then open a new terminal.

Now retry:

npm install -g openclaw@latest

Verify

command -v openclaw
openclaw --help

Related

• If you then get openclaw: command not found, your PATH still doesn’t include the global bin dir (see the related install/PATH article).