How Can I Specify the Required node.js Version in package.json?

You can specify the required Node.js version in the engines field of your package.json file. This field is used to specify the runtime that your project requires. Here's an example:

{
  "name": "your-project",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "engines": {
    "node": ">=12.0.0"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    // Your dependencies here
  }
}

In this example:

• The engines field specifies that the project requires Node.js version 12.0.0 or newer.
• The scripts field includes a simple "start" script that runs your application with Node.js (node index.js in this case).

You can adjust the version range based on your project's requirements. The version range specification follows the Semantic Versioning (SemVer) rules.

• >=12.0.0 means "12.0.0 or newer."
• ^12.0.0 means "compatible with version 12.0.0 and allows updates that do not include breaking changes."
• ~12.0.0 means "compatible with version 12.0.0 and allows only patch updates."

Choose the appropriate version range based on your project's compatibility requirements. Once you've specified the required Node.js version, tools like NPM and Yarn will use this information to warn users if they attempt to install or run your project with an incompatible Node.js version.

Got an article suggestion? Let us know

Explore more

Node.js npm

How Do You Prevent Install of “devDependencies” npm Modules for node.js (package.json)?

Questions

What's the difference between dependencies, devDependencies, and peerDependencies in NPM package.json file?

Questions

Why does "npm install" rewrite package-lock.json?

Questions

Why Does "npm install" Rewrite package-lock.json?

Questions

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.