Update: there is an updated version of this at /2016/05/11/reinstall-daggumnpm/

No matter what version of npm you use, you likely have had to destroy your node_modules folder and do a clean npm install to debug some issue. This likely isn’t exclusive to npm either, but any package manager. Regardless, here’s a quick friendly bash script to reinstall your node_modules fresh, let you know when it’s done, and automatically run the previous command.

alias daggumnpm='rm -rf node_modules && npm i && say "Rerunning `!!` && !!'

If you’ve used node at all the first two commands should be straightforward.

• rm: remove things. -rf means recursively destroy a directory.
• npm i: alias for npm install
• say "Rerunning \!!`": use your computers robot voice to audibly say Running whatever that double exclamation point is.
• !!: This is the fun one. Execute the previous command. https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-bash-history-commands-and-expansions-on-a-linux-vps#executing-commands-from-your-bash-history For example, you ran npm start and it failed with some dependency issue. daggumnpm will do a clean npm install and rerun npm start for you.