This issue was resolved by removing an errant node-modules folder. It appears that it invokes the local CLI when one exists and one existed in the node-modules folder.

Suggested change (from Filipe): "We can detect whether or not the command runs in a workspace and that should bound the mechanism for using the local version."

I don't know if this picture is accurate, but what it sounds like is that you were in a directory with a node_modules folder that contained v7 of the Angular CLI and when running ng new myApp it installed Angular v7.

After removing the node_modules folder, and running the command again, npm used the global version of the Angular CLI (v8) and installed v8 of Angular.

If this is accurate, there isn't a bug here, this is just the way node and npm work.

Maybe it's worth outputting a warning message to set clear expectations.

ng new is intended to be a global command. The problem here is that it is also a local command (albeit a non-functional local command if within a workspace).

I have problem where the new project is Angular 6. Global cli is latest.

$ npm list -g --depth=0
/Users/<user>/.nvm/versions/node/v12.4.0/lib
├── @angular/[email protected]
└── [email protected]

The directory where I'm using ng new doesn't have any modules installed.

$ npm list
/Users/<user>/code
└── (empty)

$ ng --version

Angular CLI: 6.0.8
Node: 12.4.0
OS: darwin x64
Angular:
...

Package                      Version
------------------------------------------------------
@angular-devkit/architect    <error>
@angular-devkit/core         <error>
@angular-devkit/schematics   <error>
@schematics/angular          <error>
@schematics/update           <error>
rxjs                         <error>

The directory where using ng new command has a lot other Angular project directories, can it be that ng tries to use @angular/cli from some subdirectory's node_modules?

I just ran into this issue for several hours. I had a node_modules directory in the directory I was running ng new from and didn't realize it. Would definitely be nice to have a warning message.