Build a JavaScript and Node.js project

For Language versions and other build-environment specific information visit our reference pages:

• Precise
• Trusty
• Xenial
• Bionic
• Focal
• Jammy
• macOS
• Windows
• FreeBSD

This guide covers build environment and configuration topics specific to JavaScript and Node.js projects. Please make sure to read our Onboarding and General Build configuration guides first.

Specify Node.js versions #

The easiest way to specify Node.js versions is to use one or more of the latest releases in your .travis.yml:

• node latest stable Node.js release

• lts/* latest LTS Node.js release

• 23 latest 23.x release

• 22 latest 22.x release

• 21 latest 21.x release

• 20 latest 20.x release

• 19 latest 19.x release

language: node_js
node_js:
  - 7

More specific information on what versions of Node.js are available is in the Environment Reference pages:

• Precise
• Trusty

If you need more specific control of Node.js versions in your build, use any version that is installable by nvm. If your .travis.yml contains a version of Node.js that nvm cannot install, such as 0.4, the job errors immediately.

For a precise list of versions pre-installed on the VM, please consult “Build system information” in the build log.

Specify Node.js versions using .nvmrc #

Optionally, your repository can contain a .nvmrc file in the repository root to specify which single version of Node.js to run your tests against.

The .nvmrc file is only read when node_js key in your .travis.yml files does not specify a nodejs version. When the .nvmrc file is read, $TRAVIS_NODE_VERSION is set to the nodejs version. See nvm documentation for more information on .nvmrc.

Default Build Script #

The default build script for projects using nodejs is:

npm test

In the case where no package.json file is present in the root folder, the default build script is:

make test

Yarn Support #

If yarn.lock exists, the default test command will be yarn test instead of npm test.

Use other Test Suites #

You can tell npm how to run your test suite by adding a line in package.json. For example, to test using Vows:

"scripts": {
  "test": "vows --spec"
},

Use Gulp #

If you already use Gulp to manage your tests, install it and run the default gulpfile.js by adding the following lines to your .travis.yml:

before_script:
  - npm install -g gulp-cli
script: gulp

Dependency Management #

Travis CI uses npm or yarn to install your project dependencies.

Note that there are no npm packages installed by default in the Travis CI environment.

Use npm #

Use a specific npm version #

Add the following to the before_install phase of .travis.yml:

before_install:
  - npm i -g npm@version-number

Support for npm ci #

If package-lock.json or npm-shrinkwrap.json exists and your npm version supports it, Travis CI will use npm ci instead of npm install.

This command will delete your node_modules folder and install all dependencies as specified in your lock file.

Cache with npm #

npm is now cached by default, in case you want to disable it, please add the following to your .travis.yml:

cache:
  npm: false

To explicitly cache your dependencies:

cache: npm

1. This caches $HOME/.npm precisely when npm ci is the default script command. (See above.)

2. In all other cases, this will cache node_modules. Note that npm install will still run on every build and will update/install any new packages added to your package.json file.

Even when script is overridden, this shortcut is effective.

Use yarn #

Travis CI detects the use of yarn.

If both package.json and yarn.lock are present in the current directory, we run the following command instead of npm install:

yarn --frozen-lockfile

If your Yarn version does not support --frozen-lockfile, we run just yarn.

Note that yarn requires Node.js version 4 or later. If the job does not meet this requirement, npm install is used instead.

Use a specific yarn version #

Add the following to the before_install phase of .travis.yml:

before_install:
  - curl -o- -L https://yarnpkg.com/install.sh | bash -s -- --version version-number
  - export PATH="$HOME/.yarn/bin:$PATH"

Cache with yarn #

cache: yarn

will add yarn’s default caching directory (which varies depending on the OS), as indicated by yarn cache dir.

If your caching needs to include other directives, you can use:

cache:
  yarn: true

For more information, refer to Caching documentation.

Use shrinkwrapped git dependencies #

Note that npm install can fail if a shrinkwrapped git dependency pointing to a branch has its HEAD changed.

Ember Apps #

You can build your Ember applications on Travis CI. The default test framework is Qunit. The following example shows how to build and test against different Ember versions.

dist: trusty
addons:
  apt:
    sources:
      - google-chrome
    packages:
      - google-chrome-stable
language: node_js
node_js:
  - "7"
env:
    - EMBER_VERSION=default
    - EMBER_VERSION=release
    - EMBER_VERSION=beta
    - EMBER_VERSION=canary
jobs:
  fast_finish: true
  allow_failures:
    - env: EMBER_VERSION=release
    - env: EMBER_VERSION=beta
    - env: EMBER_VERSION=canary

before_install:
    # setting the path for phantom.js 2.0.0
    - export PATH=/usr/local/phantomjs-2.0.0/bin:$PATH
    # starting a GUI to run tests, per https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/gui-and-headless-browsers/#using-xvfb-to-run-tests-that-require-a-gui
    - export DISPLAY=:99.0
    - sh -e /etc/init.d/xvfb start
    - "npm config set spin false"
    - "npm install -g npm@^2"
install:
    - mkdir travis-phantomjs
    - wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/travis-phantomjs/phantomjs-2.0.0-ubuntu-12.04.tar.bz2 -O $PWD/travis-phantomjs/phantomjs-2.0.0-ubuntu-12.04.tar.bz2
    - tar -xvf $PWD/travis-phantomjs/phantomjs-2.0.0-ubuntu-12.04.tar.bz2 -C $PWD/travis-phantomjs
    - export PATH=$PWD/travis-phantomjs:$PATH
    - npm install -g bower
    - npm install
    - bower install
script:
    - ember test --server

Meteor Apps #

You can build your Meteor Apps on Travis CI and test against laika:

language: node_js
node_js:
  - "7"
before_install:
  - "curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arunoda/travis-ci-laika/6a3a7afc21be99f1afedbd2856d060a02755de6d/configure.sh | /bin/sh"
services:
  - mongodb
env:
  - LAIKA_OPTIONS="-t 5000"

More info on testing against laika.

Meteor Packages #

You can also build your Meteor Packages on Travis CI by extending the Node.js configuration.

The following before_install script installs the required dependencies:

language: node_js
node_js:
  - "7"
before_install:
  - "curl -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/arunoda/travis-ci-meteor-packages/dca8e51fafd60d9e5a8285b07ca34a63f22a5ed4/configure.sh | /bin/sh"
before_script:
  - "export PATH=$HOME/.meteor:$PATH"

Find the source code at travis-ci-meteor-packages.

Node.js v4 (or io.js v3) compiler requirements #

To compile native modules for io.js v3 or Node.js v4 or later, a C++11 standard-compliant compiler is required. More specifically, either gcc 4.8 (or later), or clang 3.5 (or later) works.

Our Trusty images have gcc and clang that meet this requirement, but the Precise image does not.

To update these compilers to a newer version, for example, gcc/g++ to version 4.8, add the following in your .travis.yml:

language: node_js
node_js:
  - "4"
env:
  - CXX=g++-4.8
addons:
  apt:
    sources:
      - ubuntu-toolchain-r-test
    packages:
      - g++-4.8

Build Config Reference #

You can find more information on the build config format for Javascript in our Travis CI Build Config Reference.