For the longest time, I was plagued by the issue of constantly have EACCES issue with regard to EACCES issue.
To set the scene, I do not have nvm installed. So npm link actually required sudo access. Crazy. I know. (Guess who's setting up nvm next time?). package.json has dependency on packages set up by npm link.
to reproduce the issue:
firstly, rm -rf node_modules
now, npm i results in error, as the packages set up by npm link cannot be found, and the process is reversed.
sudo npm link PACKAGE successfully Links the package and creates node_modules folder, but since the node_modules folder was created with super user, node-gyp would not be able to be installed properly.
solution: (sudo) rm -rf node_modules, mkdir node_modules, sudo npm link PACKAGE, npm i