I think it is acceptable at the application level to use NODE_PATH, provided you have a normal node_modules directory at the root of your app for npm modules, a

I think it is acceptable at the application level to use NODE_PATH, provided you have a normal node_modules directory at the root of your app for npm modules, and are strict about pulling out any generic modules to that location (and ideally, to npm), and that they never reference your private modules. Most substantial applications are going to have at least some small amount of internal coupling around their business logic and configuration, and as long as you limit knowledge of the custom NODE_PATH to that code you should be alright. eg. you could have # assuming git, find repo root APP_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel) # /app is for private, checked in modules # `npm root` will find your root node_modules dir NODE_PATH="$APP_ROOT/app:`npm root`" and then all of your app-coupled private modules can live in /app, and get checked into your git repo, while all the dependencies would be referenced in the package.json at the root of your app, and installed to node_modules (eg. npm root for the app package). I should emphasise that taking this approach requires quite a bit of developer responsibility to avoid coupling between modules when it's not required, and it's really overkill for small apps.