NPM Error “Can’t find Python executable” in MacOS Big Sur

This one also plagued me for a week because node-gyp could actually find my Python instance just fine, but then a later build step was not properly configured and all of the popular answers weren’t able to pick up Python. My steps to resolve on macOS Monterey (12.3.1)…

$ brew install pyenv

# Any modern version python should do. I don't think Python 2 is required any more.
$ pyenv install 3.10.3
$ pyenv global 3.10.3

# Add pyenv to your PATH so that you can reference python (not python3)
$ echo "export PATH=\"\${HOME}/.pyenv/shims:\${PATH}\"" >> ~/.zshrc

# open a new terminal window and confirm your pyenv version is mapped to python
$ which python
$ python --version

# Now try to re-run yarn install
$ yarn

Reading the gyp-node source might helps. Here are some steps you can try.

1. Install python2. You should make sure that in the terminal, which -a python2 only returns one python2 and python2 -V returns the correct 2.x version.

2. override PYTHON env. export PYTHON=python2.

3. Rerun the install.

If there’s still an error, probably the error message is different.

I believe you can explicitly define env var by prefixing it with npm_config:

$ export npm_config_python=/path/to/python

check if that is configured by listing the config:

$ npm config list
...

; environment configs
python = "/path/to/python"

this should be picked up by node-gyp.

Another approach would be to define it in .npmrc

python = "/path/to/python"

A third approach would be to set it globaly:

npm config --global set python /path/to/python

From the terminal messages, you are installing an old version of node-gyp ([email protected]). From a quick search, it seams that this version requires python 2. Python 2 should be present in Big Sur. Properly setting the path, should work:

export PATH=/usr/bin/python:$PATH

Also, try:

export PYTHON=/usr/bin/python