Please upgrade Node

:information_desk_person: show a message to your users to upgrade Node instead of a stacktrace

It's common for new Node users to miss or not understand engines warning when installing a CLI. This package displays a beginner-friendly message if their Node version is below the one expected.

1$ node -v
20.12
3
4$ modern-cli
5modern-cli requires at least version 6 of Node, please upgrade

Support

If you like this project, you can support me on GitHub Sponsors

Usage

1npm install please-upgrade-node

Add please-upgrade-node at the top of your CLI

1#!/usr/bin/env node
2const pkg = require('./package.json')
3require('please-upgrade-node')(pkg) // <- Must run BEFORE requiring any other modules
4
5// ...

Set in your package.json the required Node version

1{
2  "engines": {
3    "node": ">=6"
4  }
5}

Important: >= is the only operator supported by please-upgrade-node (e.g. >=6, >=6.0, >=6.0.0).

Options

You can set custom exitCode and message function if needed

1pleaseUpgradeNode(pkg, {
2  exitCode: 0, // Default: 1
3  message: function(requiredVersion) {
4    return 'Oops this program require Node ' +  requiredVersion
5  }
6})

Important: to keep message function compatible with older versions of Node, avoid using ES6 features like => or string interpolation.

See also

• pkg-ok - :ok_hand: Prevents publishing a module with bad paths
• husky - :dog: Git hooks made easy
• update-notifier - Update notifications for your CLI app

Thanks to zeit/serve for the error message inspiration.

License

MIT - Typicode :cactus: - Patreon