NodeJS Plugin for Jenkins

Provides Jenkins integration for NodeJS & npm packages.

Download & Installation

You can download the latest .hpi and install it from the Manage Plugins menu, or install this plugin directly from the Plugins Update Center.

Main features

• Provides NodeJS auto-installer, allowing to create as many NodeJS installations "profiles" as you want.
  The auto-installer will automatically install a given version of NodeJS, on every jenkins agent where it will be needed
• Allows to install globally some npm packages inside each installations, these npm packages will be made available to the PATH
• Allows to execute some NodeJS script, under a given NodeJS installation
• Allows use custom NPM user configuration file defined with config-file-provider plugin to setup custom NPM settings
• Add a lightweight support to DSL pipeline
• Force 32bit architecture
• Relocate npm cache folder using pre defined strategies
• Allow use of a mirror repo for downloading and installing NodeJS.
• Cache NodeJS archives per architecture to speedup installations on ephemeral Jenkins slaves.

Usage

1. After installing the plugin, go to the global jenkins configuration panel (JENKINS_URL/configure or JENKINS_URL/configureTools if using jenkins 2),
   and add new NodeJS installations.

   • If you wish to install NodeJS from a nodejs.org mirror, select the "Install from nodejs.org mirror" option, where you can then enter a mirror URL and then install NodeJS just like you would from nodejs.org.

2. For every Nodejs installation, you can choose to install some global npm packages.
   Since 1.2.6 you could force the installation of the 32bit package for the underlying architecture if supported. If the package is not available the build will fail.

   Note that you might provide npm package's version (with syntax "[email protected]" for instance, or maybe better, "package@~0.1.0") in order to enforce
   reproductibility of your npm execution environment (the ~ syntax allows to benefits from bugfixes without taking the risk of a major version upgrade)
   See below:
   

3. Now, go to a job configuration screen, you will have 2 new items :

   • On the "Build environment" section, you will be able to pick one of the NodeJS installations to provide its bin/ folder to the PATH.
     This way, during shell build scripts, you will have some npm executables available to the command line (like bower or grunt)
     See below:
     
   • On the "Build" section, you will be able to add a "Execute NodeJS script" build step
     
     This way, you will be able to fill a textarea with the script content you want to execute.
     Note that you will have to select a NodeJS runtime you previously installed, to specify the NodeJS version you want to use
     during your NodeJS script execution.
     

4. You can customise any NPM settings you need creating a NPM config file where you can also setup multiple npm registry (scoped or public)
   and select for each one stored credential (only user/password supported type) as follow:
   and than select the config file to use for each configured build step You can also choose if enable or not the support for npm 9+ version.

5. You would relocate the npm cache folder to swipe out it when a job is removed or workspace folder is deleted. There are three default strategy:

   • per node, that is the default NPM behaviour. All download package are placed in the ~/.npm on Unix system or %APP_DATA%\npm-cache on Windows system;
   • per executor, where each executor has an own NPM cache folder placed in ~/npm-cache/$executorNumber;
   • per job, placed in the workspace folder under $WORKSPACE/npm-cache. This cache will be swipe out together the workspace and will be removed when the job is deleted.

Configure cache

Each time an executor request a new NodeJS installation after download the NodeJS archive it is stored on master node in JENKINS_HOME/caches/nodejs. This is done to speed up the installation on a Jenkins slaves (for example on ephemeral slaves in kubernetes) and reduce internet traffic.

This functionality can be turn off adding a JVM property in java options:

JENKINS_JAVA_OPTIONS="[...] -Djenkins.plugins.nodejs.tools.NodeJSInstaller.cache.disable=true"

Pipeline

The current supported DSL steps are:

• nodejs (as buildwrapper)
• tools

In a Declarative pipeline you can add any configured NodeJS tool to your job, and it will enhance
the PATH variable with the selected NodeJS installation folder, instead in scripted pipeline you have to do it manually.

Example of use tools in Jenkinsfile (Scripted Pipeline)

node {
    env.NODEJS_HOME = "${tool 'Node 6.x'}"
    // on linux / mac
    env.PATH="${env.NODEJS_HOME}/bin:${env.PATH}"
    // on windows
    env.PATH="${env.NODEJS_HOME};${env.PATH}"
    sh 'npm --version'
}

This example show the use of buildwrapper, where enhanced PATH will be available only inside the brace block

Example of the use of buildwrapper Jenkinsfile (Declarative Pipeline)

pipeline {
    agent any

    stages {
        stage('Build') {
            steps {
                nodejs(nodeJSInstallationName: 'Node 6.x', configId: '<config-file-provider-id>') {
                    sh 'npm config ls'
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

Configure plugin via Groovy script

Either automatically upon Jenkins post-initialization or through Jenkins script console, example:

#!/usr/bin/env groovy
import hudson.tools.InstallSourceProperty
import jenkins.model.Jenkins
import jenkins.plugins.nodejs.tools.NodeJSInstallation
import jenkins.plugins.nodejs.tools.NodeJSInstaller
import static jenkins.plugins.nodejs.tools.NodeJSInstaller.DEFAULT_NPM_PACKAGES_REFRESH_HOURS

final versions = [
        'NodeJS 8.x': '8.16.1'
]

Jenkins.instance.getDescriptor(NodeJSInstallation).with {
    installations = versions.collect {
        new NodeJSInstallation(it.key, null, [
                new InstallSourceProperty([
                        new NodeJSInstaller(it.value, null, DEFAULT_NPM_PACKAGES_REFRESH_HOURS)
                ])
        ])
    }  as NodeJSInstallation[]
}

Known limitations / issues

NodeJS version 1.0 has adapted its code to the most recent Jenkins API (1.6xx). If also EnvInject is installed you will fall in JENKINS-26583
that corrupts setup of the nodejs installation bin folder into PATH environment. In this case consider if update or not or use an own build from
this branch until the JENKINS-26583 will not be fixed.

• If you update from NodeJS 0.2.2 or earlier to newer version materializes a data migration. This data migration is transparent to the users but
  you can not back to 0.2.2 without lost global configuration tools and job build step configuration.
• NodeJS versions prior to 0.9.0 won't be available at the moment (directory structure was not the same as today on distribution site).
  This might be handled in the future (this is exposed as PathResolver implementation) :
  don't hesitate to provide new implementations for previous versions and submit a PR on github.
• Supported architecture are:
  • Windows 32/64 bit
  • Linux 32/64 bit
  • OSX (intel) 64 bit
  • Arm 6l/7l/64
  • SunOS
  • AIX

Releases Notes

Please refer to github repository page