How to set up WSL toolchain in CLion to behave like interactive WSL?

Question

I've got a Debian WSL2 install that I'm using to write some cross platform C code. As part of the CMake setup, I'm calling a non-global install of npm (which I installed using nvm). This works fine when running interactively, but when run from the CLion Run configuration, it isn't aware of the NVM install - likely because it's not sourcing the bash_profile before running. How can I get a non-interactive shell to run interactively in this context?

Answer 1

To correctly find your NPM install through NVM, you can use a combination of sudo and source. The key is to always source nvm.sh before attempting to use anything installed by npm

In your CMake

add_custom_command(
  COMMAND sudo -u <your user> /path/to/script.sh
  ...
)

In your build script, /path/to/script.sh

#!/bin/bash

# other init stuff

# before your first npm/nvm call
source "$HOME/.nvm/nvm.sh"

# now you can use anything installed by npm