Gulp Error Message "File not found" on MacOS - bash

Question

I'm attempting to get Gulp up and running on MacOS 10.12.3. However, no matter what I do, I am getting the following error: No Gulp File Found.
I have done the following:
Installed gulp cli globally via sudo bash. Gulp version as of this writing is 3.9.1
Installed gulp locally via npm install gulp. Gulp version as of this writing is 3.9.1.
I've done the touch gulp command. This has created a 0kb blank gulp file.
I've created a test gulp.js file in my root directory. The code for said file looks likevar gulp = require('gulp');
Any thoughts on what's going on here?!

Answer 1

Your gulp file needs to be called gulpfile.js, not gulp.js.
While you're at it, I also recommend initializing npm by running npm init (it will walk you through it… just use all the defaults for now), and then adding gulp to your package.json by running npm install --save gulp. This will add
"dependencies": {
"gulp": "^3.9.1"
}
to your package.json.
What's the point of this? npm's package.json's "dependencies" becomes a list of all the gulp-related plugins your project needs. Any time you need to recreate the project, all you need is that package.json and you can run npm install to install them.
Note that even after renaming your file, you'll get the error
Task 'default' is not in your gulpfile
At the very least gulpfile.js will have to include the line gulp.task('default');… but if that's all your gulpfile has, you won't actually be doing anything with gulp.
I highly recommend working through css-trick's Gulp for Beginners - it doesn't take long, and you'll come out with a much more complete understanding of how to use gulp.