ionic-cli: ERROR: Cordova CLI not found on your PATH.

What version of the CLI are you using? Output of ionic --version

3.0.0-rc.1

Short description of the problem:

$ ionic start ionic-test should create the project but instead exits with
ERROR: Cordova CLI not found on your PATH. … I have cordova installed globally and have no problem creating a cordova project. However ionic refuses to create a project even though I have tried several versions of ionic from 4.3.1 through to the current version 3 beta.
All stop with an error message indicating that the Cordova CLI is not on the path.

What behavior are you expecting?

ionic start ionic-test should create.

Post the output of ionic info below please global packages:

@ionic/cli-utils : 1.0.0-rc.1
Ionic CLI        : 3.0.0-rc.1

System:

Node       : v6.10.3
OS         : Linux 4.8
Xcode      : not installed
ios-deploy : not installed
ios-sim    : not installed

Other information: I suspect this may be related to the method I used for installing global npm packages. I have them installed under my home folder so that I do not have to sudo every time I make changes to the global packages (as recommended on the npm fixing permissions page).

If I add a specific path reference to the cordova bin directory by including

#set path to cordova bin ###temp until ionic can find cordova
export PATH=${PATH}:~/.npm-global/lib/node_modules/cordova/bin

in my .bashrc then the reload the system variables and again run
$ ionic start ionic-test the project is created and ionic info gives the following

global packages:

    @ionic/cli-utils : 1.0.0-rc.1
    Cordova CLI      : 7.0.0 
    Ionic CLI        : 3.0.0-rc.1

local packages:

    @ionic/app-scripts              : 1.3.6
    @ionic/cli-plugin-cordova       : 1.0.0-rc.1
    @ionic/cli-plugin-ionic-angular : 1.0.0-rc.1
    Ionic Framework                 : ionic-angular 3.1.1

System:

    Node       : v6.10.3
    OS         : Linux 4.8
    Xcode      : not installed
    ios-deploy : not installed
    ios-sim    : not installed

My full PATH variable includes the path ~/.npm-global/bin as per the npm fixing permisions instructions.

I would have thought that having the path variable ~/.npm-global/bin set should have been sufficient for ionic to find the cordova files it requires without having to set a specific path to the cordova bin directory.

Best regards Douglas