Fix 'Sorry, name can only contain URL-friendly characters.' in npm

I wanted to update one of my websites with some new content, but I needed to compile some more Sass into CSS, and I didn’t want to use ScoutApp anymore.

Since I started learning Laravel, I got used to CLI more.

So, I went ahead and installed node.js to use the npm node-sass package.

I followed a guide which said that I had to run npm init, which will prompt some questions.

But I didn’t see anything that looked like a question, so I went ahead and started to spam npm install node-sass and other commands where it requested the package name:. 😄

I thought it was requesting the name of the package to install, which was node-sass in this case.

But I kept getting this error:

Sorry, name can only contain URL-friendly characters.

While searching for a solution, I saw many people on forums making the same mistake as me 😃. That’s why I decided to write this guide.

The Solution

The solution is simple, and it seems “duh” now that I understood what’s going on. 😃

The package name: is actually part of the info requested for the package.json file that is created when running npm init.

And it requests “URL-friendly characters”, which means you need to name your package using URL-type formatting, like this:

package name: example-package-name

Words separated by hyphens, without capital letters. It might work with only one word, but I haven’t tried that yet.

That’s a Wrap

I hope this post helped you out and you don’t get the “Sorry, name can only contain URL-friendly characters.” error anymore.

If some info is outdated or incorrect, or you have anything to add, say or ask, please contact me via Twitter or email.