Eliminate external dependencies. Install nodejs and npm inside your app's directory, just like other dependencies. Ensure that global npm modules are installed in your app's own node sandbox too. Don't be burned ever again by a global node install on a crufty old server.

Add vendored-node to your project's root directory

$ cd my-project
$ git clone https://github.com/fragmentz/vendored-node.git node
$ make -C ./node NODE_VERSION=4.3.0

Run your app

$ node/bin/npm install
$ node/bin/node app.js

You now have a complete node install based at my-project/node/. The executables are all in my-project/node/bin. NPM is in there too, and global modules will be installed to my-project/node/lib/node_modules.

The setup shown above can be run from any setup script, or builder that does not itself require the presence of node. Make is a particularly simple, and ubiquitous way to do this. An example Makefile is included, which you can copy to your project as a starter.

# careful! this could overwrite any existing Makefile in this directory:
$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fragmentz/vendored-node/master/Makefile.example > Makefile

Now, from a clean checkout of your project, you can install node, and run. Like this:

$ git clone <my-project-git-url>
$ cd my-project
$ make
$ node/bin/npm start

If you don't like typing node/bin/... before your node global commands, see A useful function for development below.

You may also want to gitignore the node directory, to avoid putting it in source control:

$ cd my-project
$ echo "node/" >> .gitignore

Install them like normal, but use the vendored npm.

$ node/bin/npm install -g mocha

"Global" modules are still contained within your vendored-node "sandbox".

$ ls -l node/bin/mocha
lrwxr-xr-x  1 lee  staff  35 Oct 15 23:19 node/bin/mocha -> ../lib/node_modules/mocha/bin/mocha

Most global tools need to be run through the node exe explicitly to ensure that the proper version of node is used for subsequent invocations.

$ node/bin/node node/bin/mocha --version
3.1.2

This shell function is useful during development

# usage:
# withnode <cmd> [<args>...]
#
# Invokes <cmd> after adjusting PATH to include the appropriate local node/bin
# directory.  `node/bin` is first located by searching up the directory tree
# starting with the current working directory.
#
function withnode() {
    path=$(pwd)
    while [[ $path != / ]]; do
        if [ -x $path/node/bin/node ] ; then
            break;
        fi
        path="$(readlink "$path"/.. || { cd "$path/.." && pwd -P; })"
    done
    if [ ! -x $path/node/bin/node ] ; then
        1>&2 echo "no node found"
        return
    fi
    if [ -n "$1" ] ; then
        PATH="$path/node/bin":$PATH "$@"
    else
        echo "$path/node/bin/node"
    fi
}

With that in your shell, you can call node global binaries, from any dir inside your project root, like this:

# first cd somewhere inside your project
$ cd my-project/some-sub-dir

# now call your command as you normally would, but prefix it with `withnode`
$ withnode node -v
$ withnode npm install foo
$ withnode gulp build
...

$ node --version
-bash: node: command not found

This is a good thing. You didn't want to run that nasty global node install anyway. You have no idea where that thing has been.

$ my-project/bin/node --version
v4.3.0

... now that's more like it.

The whole point is to ensure that you're always running the version of node (and any global modules) that the application was built to use. And that you're not affected by whatever crap happens to be installed in the global environment of the host machine. The best way to ensure this is to completely remove the global node install from your workstations and servers. Each application gets its own vendored-node, at the proper version, and you never accidentally run the global node.

Your application's Makefile installs it, along with any global npm modules and other dependencies. All your users have to type is make