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Alternative environment variable due to warning on npm_config_nodedir #3163

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Alternative environment variable due to warning on npm_config_nodedir#3163

Description

@jellelicht
jellelicht
opened on May 19, 2025

See title.
Somewhere since npm@11.x.y, npm now warns on seeing 'unknown' configuration options.
Setting nodedir in your npmrc (or setting the environment variable npm_config_nodedir) gives us a warning that nodedir is not supported, and will be an error Real Soon (tm):

 npm warn Unknown user config "nodedir". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.

Provided I want to set up the nodedir for scripts that end up calling scripts than end up calling scripts than run npm 1, how will I be able to set up a simple environment variable that allow node-gyp to find the relevant node files in the future when the current approach will no longer work?

Footnotes

  1. So I don't have control over the actual invocation of the npm, and therefore can't simply pass an option. ↩

Activity

  1. lukekarrys commented on May 20, 2025

    @lukekarrys
    lukekarrys
    on May 20, 2025
    Member

    This is a good question and one we will need to figure out how to handle in node-gyp. I'm going to close this as a duplicate of #3156 so we can consolidate future discussions to a single issue.

  2. lukekarrys
    closed this as completedon May 20, 2025

  3. CamJN commented on Aug 19, 2025

    @CamJN
    CamJN
    on Aug 19, 2025

    This needs to be reopened as #3156 is closed now and #3196 did not address this.

  4. lukekarrys commented on Aug 19, 2025

    @lukekarrys
    lukekarrys
    on Aug 19, 2025
    Member

    Here's how you would accomplish this now that #3196 is merged. I'm running a local copy of node-gyp and grepping the output on stderr to confirm that it is picking up the new environment variable.

    > export npm_package_config_node_gyp_nodedir=/MY_NODEDIR

> ./bin/node-gyp.js configure --loglevel=verbose 2>&1 | grep 'get node dir'
gyp verb get node dir compiling against specified --nodedir dev files: /MY_NODEDIR

    Also I've confirmed that exporting this environment variable does not show any warnings from npm:

    > export npm_package_config_node_gyp_nodedir=/MY_NODEDIR

> npm --version
11.5.2

> export npm_config_nodedir=/FROM_NPM

> npm --version
npm warn Unknown env config "nodedir". This will stop working in the next major version of npm.
11.5.2

    @CamJN Can you write an example for your use-case showing what is not achievable with this new functionality? I can't figure out what I might be missing.

  5. CamJN commented on Aug 19, 2025

    @CamJN
    CamJN
    on Aug 19, 2025

    Ah my bad, I misread. I set nodedir instead of devdir and thought the env vars weren't working.

  6. lukekarrys commented on Aug 19, 2025

    @lukekarrys
    lukekarrys
    on Aug 19, 2025
    Member

    Thanks for confirming. I also misread originally when I linked the issues as duplicates. This and #3192 should have been linked (and one kept open) instead of #3196 since that might be a slightly different issue with nodegit. Sorry for the confusion.

  7. cclauss commented on Aug 19, 2025

    @cclauss
    cclauss
    on Aug 19, 2025
    Contributor

    Nice teamwork!

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