Node failes to install tools via "npm install"

npm install installs the dependencies listed in your package.json. The error you get means that the folder you are currently in does not have a package.json.

You should ideally be using a file called package.json (not packages.json) to follow convention. Also that file may be missing. Please create a package.json and check the notation is correct in the JSON file.

'npm install' looks for dependencies listed in package.json file and then pulls them from npm registry into the local ./node_modules folder.