setup-node/README.md

setup-node

This action provides the following functionality for GitHub Actions users:

• Optionally downloading and caching distribution of the requested Node.js version, and adding it to the PATH
• Optionally caching npm/yarn/pnpm dependencies
• Registering problem matchers for error output
• Configuring authentication for GPR or npm

Usage

See action.yml

Basic:

steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- uses: actions/setup-node@v3
  with:
    node-version: 16
- run: npm ci
- run: npm test

The node-version input is optional. If not supplied, the node version from PATH will be used. However, it is recommended to always specify Node.js version and don't rely on the system one.

The action will first check the local cache for a semver match. If unable to find a specific version in the cache, the action will attempt to download a version of Node.js. It will pull LTS versions from node-versions releases and on miss or failure will fall back to the previous behavior of downloading directly from node dist.

For information regarding locally cached versions of Node.js on GitHub hosted runners, check out GitHub Actions Runner Images.

Supported version syntax

The node-version input supports the Semantic Versioning Specification, for more detailed examples please refer to the documentation.

Examples:

• Major versions: 14, 16, 18
• More specific versions: 10.15, 16.15.1 , 18.4.0
• NVM LTS syntax: lts/erbium, lts/fermium, lts/*, lts/-n
• Latest release: * or latest/current/node

Note: Like the other values, * will get the latest locally-cached Node.js version, or the latest version from actions/node-versions, depending on the check-latest input.

current/latest/node always resolve to the latest dist version. That version is then downloaded from actions/node-versions if possible, or directly from Node.js if not. Since it will not be cached always, there is possibility of hitting rate limit when downloading from dist

Checking in lockfiles

It's always recommended to commit the lockfile of your package manager for security and performance reasons. For more information consult the "Working with lockfiles" section of the Advanced usage guide.

Caching global packages data

The action has a built-in functionality for caching and restoring dependencies. It uses actions/cache under the hood for caching global packages data but requires less configuration settings. Supported package managers are npm, yarn, pnpm (v6.10+). The cache input is optional, and caching is turned off by default.

The action defaults to search for the dependency file (package-lock.json, npm-shrinkwrap.json or yarn.lock) in the repository root, and uses its hash as a part of the cache key. Use cache-dependency-path for cases when multiple dependency files are used, or they are located in different subdirectories.

Note: The action does not cache node_modules

See the examples of using cache for yarn/pnpm and cache-dependency-path input in the Advanced usage guide.

Caching npm dependencies:

steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- uses: actions/setup-node@v3
  with:
    node-version: 16
    cache: 'npm'
- run: npm ci
- run: npm test

Caching npm dependencies in monorepos:

steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v3
- uses: actions/setup-node@v3
  with:
    node-version: 16
    cache: 'npm'
    cache-dependency-path: subdir/package-lock.json
- run: npm ci
- run: npm test

Matrix Testing

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    strategy:
      matrix:
        node: [ 14, 16, 18 ]
    name: Node ${{ matrix.node }} sample
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Setup node
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: ${{ matrix.node }}
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm test

Using setup-node on GHES

setup-node comes pre-installed on the appliance with GHES if Actions is enabled. When dynamically downloading Nodejs distributions, setup-node downloads distributions from actions/node-versions on github.com (outside of the appliance). These calls to actions/node-versions are made via unauthenticated requests, which are limited to 60 requests per hour per IP. If more requests are made within the time frame, then you will start to see rate-limit errors during downloading that looks like: ##[error]API rate limit exceeded for.... After that error the action will try to download versions directly from the official site, but it also can have rate limit so it's better to put token.

To get a higher rate limit, you can generate a personal access token on github.com and pass it as the token input for the action:

uses: actions/setup-node@v3
with:
  token: ${{ secrets.GH_DOTCOM_TOKEN }}
  node-version: 16

If the runner is not able to access github.com, any Nodejs versions requested during a workflow run must come from the runner's tool cache. See "Setting up the tool cache on self-hosted runners without internet access" for more information.

Advanced usage

1. Check latest version
2. Using a node version file
3. Using different architectures
4. Using nightly versions
5. Using rc versions
6. Caching packages data
7. Using multiple operating systems and architectures
8. Publishing to npmjs and GPR with npm
9. Publishing to npmjs and GPR with yarn
10. Using private packages

License

The scripts and documentation in this project are released under the MIT License

Contributions

Contributions are welcome! See Contributor's Guide

Code of Conduct

👋 Be nice. See our code of conduct