I was running in the ServerCore windows container on Gitlab so the msiexec.exe did not work for me. However found another answer that did work over here from user Witcher: Docker + Node.js + Windows

The commands in the container that ended up working in my gitlab yml file before_script were:

Invoke-WebRequest 'https://nodejs.org/dist/v18.12.0/node-v18.12.0-win-x64.zip' OutFile 'C:/nodejs.zip'

Expand-Archive C:\nodejs.zip -DestinationPath C:\

Rename-Item "C:\\node-v18.12.0-win-x64" C:\nodejs

$Env:Path += ";C:\nodejs"

This is downloading the Zip file from Nodejs's site to the root of C, expanding the archive, and setting the nodejs path to the environment path variable so the "npm" command is recognized.

Npm is already installed. That is why the error message is not Command not found.

The specific command you issued npm install -g attempts to use npm to install the package in the current directory globally.

Leaving the point that installing packages globally is a bad idea aside, this is failing because you are running the command in a directory that does not contain a package. It is your home directory, not one containing a package.json file.

if this a windows system you need to run cmd with administrator rights and try it.