As @pitaj mentions, invoking sudo with NodeBB is bound to bring you trouble -- no need for superuser privileges for NodeBB, and I'm thinking of having NodeBB run as the nobody user, if possible...
@julian It seemed pretty straight forward in my mind is the worst part.
Yup, I want this server to be this other server's pathetic little slave and take orders all day...Wha?.....It's rebelling!
It's hard to beat the incorrect logic of something you know absolutely should work as you're telling it to.
@julian, I think I fixed this issue. I rolled back to a snapshot before I installed NodeBB and re-cloned the 0.5.1 branch and it installed without an issue and I have sweet, glorious CSS!