"npm ci" throws exception: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined - npm

Question

I'm getting this exception both on my local environment and in CircleCI.
> core-js#3.6.4 postinstall /home/vallo/project/node_modules/core-js
> node -e "try{require('./postinstall')}catch(e){}"
npm ERR! Cannot read property 'length' of undefined
npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR! /home/vallo/.npm/_logs/2020-01-16T20_12_00_564Z-debug.log
/home/vallo/.npm/_logs/2020-01-16T20_12_00_564Z-debug.log last lines:
11424 info lifecycle #babel/core#7.8.3~postinstall: #babel/core#7.8.3
11425 info lifecycle undefined#undefined~install: undefined#undefined
11426 verbose stack TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined
11426 verbose stack at _incorrectWorkingDirectory (/home/vallo/.nvm/versions/node/v12.14.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:114:60)
11426 verbose stack at /home/vallo/.nvm/versions/node/v12.14.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:86:44
11426 verbose stack at /home/vallo/.nvm/versions/node/v12.14.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle/index.js:218:12
11426 verbose stack at callback (/home/vallo/.nvm/versions/node/v12.14.0/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/graceful-fs/polyfills.js:295:20)
11426 verbose stack at FSReqCallback.oncomplete (fs.js:159:5)
11427 verbose cwd /home/vallo/project
11428 verbose Linux 5.3.0-26-generic
11429 verbose argv "/home/vallo/.nvm/versions/node/v12.14.0/bin/node" "/home/vallo/.nvm/versions/node/v12.14.0/bin/npm" "ci"
11430 verbose node v12.14.0
11431 verbose npm v6.13.6
11432 error Cannot read property 'length' of undefined
11433 verbose exit [ 1, true ]
This is my package.json:
{
"private": true,
"scripts": {
"install": "npx babel-node scripts/npm/install.js",
"test": "npx babel-node scripts/npm/test.js",
"lambda-test": "lambda/serverUnit.sh",
"lint": "node_modules/.bin/eslint .",
"flow": "flow; test $? -eq 0 -o $? -eq 2"
},
"devDependencies": {
"#babel/cli": "^7.4.4",
"#babel/core": "^7.4.4",
"#babel/node": "^7.2.2",
"#babel/plugin-proposal-object-rest-spread": "^7.5.5",
"#babel/plugin-transform-modules-commonjs": "^7.4.4",
"#babel/plugin-transform-runtime": "^7.4.4",
"#babel/polyfill": "^7.4.4",
"#babel/preset-env": "^7.4.4",
"#babel/preset-flow": "^7.0.0",
"#babel/register": "^7.4.4",
"#sanjo/jasmine-expect": "^1.0.1",
"#sanjo/jasmine-spy": "^1.0.1",
"#share911/babel-plugin-root-slash-import": "^1.2.0",
"aws-sdk": "^2.521.0",
"babel-eslint": "^10.0.3",
"babel-loader": "^8.0.5",
"babel-plugin-meteor-imports": "^1.0.3",
"babelify": "^10.0.0",
"browserify": "^16.2.3",
"chai": "^4.2.0",
"commander": "2.9.0",
"eslint": "^6.3.0",
"eslint-config-standard": "^14.1.0",
"eslint-plugin-flowtype": "^4.3.0",
"eslint-plugin-import": "^2.18.2",
"eslint-plugin-node": "^10.0.0",
"eslint-plugin-promise": "^4.2.1",
"eslint-plugin-react": "^7.14.3",
"eslint-plugin-standard": "^4.0.1",
"flow-bin": "^0.106.3",
"jsdom": "^15.1.1",
"jsdom-global": "^3.0.2",
"json-loader": "^0.5.4",
"karma": "^4.1.0",
"karma-browserify": "^6.0.0",
"karma-chrome-launcher": "^2.2.0",
"karma-mocha": "^1.3.0",
"meteor": "./modules/meteor/",
"meteor-promise": "^0.8.0",
"mocha": "^6.1.4",
"phantomjs-prebuilt": "^2.1.15",
"proxyquire": "^1.7.10",
"proxyquireify": "^3.2.0",
"serverless": "^1.51.0",
"sinon": "^7.3.2",
"standard": "^12.0.1",
"tingodb": "^0.6.1",
"wallabify": "0.0.14",
"watchify": "^3.11.1",
"webpack": "^4.30.0",
"webpack-node-externals": "^1.7.2"
},
"dependencies": {
"#babel/runtime": "^7.4.5",
"aws-xray-sdk-core": "^2.3.5",
"chai-as-promised": "^7.1.1",
"json-to-pretty-yaml": "^1.2.2",
"obj-resolve": "^1.0.4",
"winston": "^3.2.1"
}
}
I'm running node 12.14.0 and npm 6.13.6

Answer 1

Problem is on function _incorrectWorkingDirectory from npm-lifecycle, which does not check if pkg.name is null therefore throws an exception.
To fix this, add "name" property to package.json.
https://github.com/npm/npm-lifecycle/blob/latest/index.js#L114