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Could not determine executable to run

If you receive the following error:

npm ERR! could not determine executable to run

It could be for multiple reasons.

Binary not installed​

NPM binaries can have different names than the NPM package.

If you run npx remotion, and don't have @remotion/cli installed, it will fail because the remotion binary is supplied by the @remotion/cli package.
Check if you have the correct package installed.

Corepack issue​

It may be because you are using the npx command but the project is configured to use a different package manager.

If Corepack is enabled, the packageManager property in package.json matters:

package.json
json
{
  "packageManager": "pnpm@7.1.0"
}

If the package manager is set to something else than npm, then the npx command may give this error message.

Resolution​

Use the correct command runner for your project:

  • If the package manager is set to pnpm, use pnpm exec instead of npx.
  • If the package manager is set to yarn, use yarn instead of npx.
  • If the package manager is set to bun, use bunx instead of npx.