npm is installed using nvm but IntelliJ doesn't know about it

NVM patches environment variables on terminal startup only. If the IDE is launched from Terminal, it inherits Terminal environment (including modified PATH environment variable, added NVM_DIR env var, etc). In that case, there are normally no problems with using node/npm, because Idea sees the correct PATH value.
For bash as shell, workaround could be the the following: edit your Idea launcher and set command to "/bin/bash -l -c "/path/to/idea.sh". This command will perform bash login (i.e. reading your .bashrc/.bash_profile files) and after that will run idea

I typed /opt/idea-IU-162.2032.8/bin/idea.sh in Terminal to launch intelliJ, Is this exactly what you mean by "launching from Terminal"? After that, I still cannot get the same environment variable and Node in intelliJ.

Very strange - Idea inherits terminal environment when being started in terminal, so everything should work. What are you doing namely? Can you describe your steps/attach screenshots that show up the issue (npm not recognized in Idea)?

then intellij is launched.

Node is not found and the PATH is different, how can I make the IntelliJ terminal work like in the first Terminal?

Hmm.. Can you attach a screenshot of your terminal settings (Settings | Tools | Terminal) and your idea.log (https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/207241085-Locating-IDE-log-files)?

Idea terminal launches a login shell by default, so your .bashrc file is not read. The workaround is adding `-i` parameter to bash in shell path settings. See http://taming-the-bits.logdown.com/posts/275357-how-to-improve-the-terminal-window-in-idea

Thanks! Adding -i from the terminal setting  actually works. :)

I had the same problem after IDE update and hated it going out of IDE. My issue was that fish is system shell for my system, and I did not need any config in IDE, but with this release, there was an option added Shell Integration just disable that, and it started working.

I got clue be reading the plugin documentation that this option adds one more layer for customization but for my system the whole system is configured hence do not need it.  

Disable it, and fish node nvm all started working.

That is because one of your PATH contains space.

I comment out the line `export PATH="/c/Program Files/erl9.1/bin:$PATH"` and logout login my system, then it works.

This bug was not here in IntellijIdea 2017 but appear in 2018 (2018.2.3)

I seem to run in a similar problem when starting IntelliJ from the "Jetbrains Toolbox". Node is recognized from the Terminal, however all services in the settings that require NodeJS (like NodeJS and NPM, ESLint, TSLint etc) all can't find the executable (see attached screenshot). 

If I start IntelliJ from the terminal, the executables can be found. In the Terminal settings, I've added `-i` to bash in the shell path, but to no avail. Any ideas how I can get this fixed?

Thanks for your answer. 

In the end I had to add the code that loads NVM to the ~/.profile. When I added it to ~/.bash_profile it didn't seem to change anything, even though it states in the .profile that 

# This file is not read by bash(1), if ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login
# exists.

Add export NVM_SYMLINK_CURRENT=true to your .bashrc before NVM-stuff. Then do "nvm use default" - symlink is created. Then add $HOME/.nvm/current/bin to your PATH in .profile

Igor, you totally nailed it!

Thanks

Igor Kalinovski, huge thanks! But it's may require relogin after described actions. Because in my case .nvm/current folder didn't exist.

I used Elena's method, and it worked really well. I prefered it to Igor's method, but if someone can tell me a reason why Igor's method is preferable, I will be very thankful.

I reached node/nvm/iTerm2 bliss in macOS Catalina by doing the following:

1. Moving everything I had in `.bashrc` to `.profile`

2. Changing `.bashrc` to just load `.profile` like so:

```

if [[ -f "${HOME}/.profile" ]]; then
    source "${HOME}/.profile"
fi

```

3. Following the post above from Igor, to create a "default" symlink

Everything now works great!

I'm using nvm and zsh. Coping the values

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" # This loads nvm bash_completion

to `~./profile` worked. My `~./zshrc` and `~./bashrc` do not have the export and I'm using the self created desktop entry from Intellij. Session restart was required.

Add export NVM_SYMLINK_CURRENT=true to your .bashrc before NVM-stuff. Then do nvm use default - symlink is created. (Igor Kalinovskiy), then go to settings and choose node interpreter from the folder for nvm's current node version.