The guilty part was a .npmrc (created on some npm call) which was settling in: prefix=~/.node_modules This one makes the module installed in a different (non snapcraft-related path), and so the build is failing. ----- I'm trying to use the nodejs webchat example as our base nodejs minimal example. snapcraft master HEAD at 6d17a601d24b7053ffe92e3cb1d58e0bb9415a36. examples/webchat$ ../../bin/snapcraft Pulling webchat Building webchat npm install -g /home/didrocks/.node_modules/bin/webchat-for-a-snap -> /home/didrocks/.node_modules/lib/node_modules/webchat-for-a-snap/webchat.js webchat-for-a-snap@0.0.1 /home/didrocks/.node_modules/lib/node_modules/webchat-for-a-snap ├── express@4.13.4 (escape-html@1.0.3, array-flatten@1.1.1, cookie-signature@1.0.6, content-type@1.0.1, utils-merge@1.0.0, merge-descriptors@1.0.1, methods@1.1.2, vary@1.0.1, cookie@0.1.5, etag@1.7.0, content-disposition@0.5.1, fresh@0.3.0, path-to-regexp@0.1.7, range-parser@1.0.3, parseurl@1.3.1, serve-static@1.10.2, depd@1.1.0, qs@4.0.0, on-finished@2.3.0, finalhandler@0.4.1, debug@2.2.0, proxy-addr@1.0.10, send@0.13.1, type-is@1.6.12, accepts@1.2.13) └── socket.io@1.4.5 (has-binary@0.1.7, debug@2.2.0, socket.io-parser@2.2.6, socket.io-adapter@0.4.0, engine.io@1.6.8, socket.io-client@1.4.5) Staging webchat Stripping webchat [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/didrocks/work/snappy/snapcraft/examples/webchat/snap/bin/webchat-for-a-snap' The issue I guess is coming from: /home/didrocks/.node_modules/bin/webchat-for-a-snap -> /home/didrocks/.node_modules/lib/node_modules/webchat-for-a-snap/webchat.js. It's not using the current example/stage directory. $ find . -name 'webchat*' ./parts/webchat ./parts/webchat/build/webchat.js ./webchat.js (not in install/) I don't have any local nodejs or npm installed in the PATH, I even removed ~/.node-modules to ensure this wasn't triggering some weird npm behavior.