NPM

See the GH docs page on Using Node.js with GitHub Actions. Some of the samples come from here.

To build a Node app (such as React or Vue) and serve it with GH Pages, see the Deploy GH Pages section of this cookbook site.

See npm ci installs for use of npm ci instead of npm install.

Set up Node action

Note that the action environment already include Node.js, but using actions/setup-node gives more control.

See Set up Node.js Environment action.

Set up a Node.js environment by adding problem matchers and optionally downloading and adding it to the PATH

Samples

Basic

Use a single Node.js version of say 16, 16.3.0, or lts/erbium (NVM syntax).

I created this based on the other samples and the setup-node action README.

• main.yml

    steps:
      - name: Checkout 🛎️
        uses: actions/checkout@master
  
      - name: Set up Node.js
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: 'npm'
  
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm
  
      - name: Test
        run: npm test
        env:
          CI: true
  
      - name: Build
        run: npm run build
  

Cache dependencies

You can reduce build time if dependencies are cached between builds.

There are two recommended approaches here. Both require package-lock.json to be in version control. And both will cache tarballs in ~/.npm - this is useful since node_modules get deleted by npm ci and so caching that would be useless.

Setup-node action cache

Built-in to setup-node, based on doc:

• main.yml

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@master
  
      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
          cache: 'npm'
  
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci
  

Cache action

Using a separate cache action, based on GH docs:

• main.yml

    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@master
  
      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v1
        with:
          node-version: '16'
  
      - name: Cache Node.js modules
        uses: actions/cache@v2
        with:
          path: ~/.npm
          key: ${{ runner.OS }}-node-${{ hashFiles('**/package-lock.json') }}
          restore-keys: |
            ${{ runner.OS }}-node-
            ${{ runner.OS }}-
  
      - name: Install dependencies
        run: npm ci
  

Matrix

This sample comes from the docs and is similar to the default covered in the example after this.

• main.yml

    name: Node CI
  
    on: push
  
    jobs:
      build:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  
        strategy:
          matrix:
            node-version: [8, 10, 12]
  
        steps:
          - name: Checkout
            uses: actions/checkout@master
  
          - name: Set up Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
            uses: actions/setup-node@v2
            with:
              node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
  
          - name: Install dependencies
            run: npm install
  
          - name: Build
            run: npm run build
  
          - name: Test
            run: npm test
            env:
              CI: true
  

Set up Node action default

From the GitHub Action samples:

• Set up Node action - actions/setup-node

• main.yml

    name: Node CI
  
    on:
      push:
        branches: [ master ]
      pull_request:
        branches: [ master ]
  
    jobs:
      build:
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  
        strategy:
          matrix:
            node-version: [10, 12]
  
        steps:
          - uses: actions/checkout@v2
  
          - name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
            uses: actions/setup-node@v2
            with:
              node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
  
          - name: Install dependencies
            run: npm ci
  
          - name: Build
            run: npm run build --if-present
  
          - name: Test
            run: npm test