Make any necessary updates to support Node 18 LTS

[joelanman]

What

Make any necessary updates to support Node 18 LTS (long term support), which launches 25 October

Why

We will change our guidance to install Node 18 LTS. When 18 becomes LTS, its the main link on Node homepage, its hard to get other versions.

Who needs to work on this

• developers

Who needs to review this

• developers

Done when

• [x] The kit supports Node 18 LTS

[joelanman]

the PR for the last time we did this is here: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-prototype-kit/pull/1127

[lfdebrux]

@joelanman do we want version 12 to support Node 18?

[joelanman]

@lfdebrux I think so? Otherwise we'd tell people to use 18 and it doesnt work. It's possible it just works as is, I dont think Engines technically has to change but I could be wrong

[lfdebrux]

@joelanman okay. If we don't change the engines directive in package.json users will get a warning when they run npm install:

npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: 'govuk-prototype-kit@12.2.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '>=12.0.0 <17.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v18.11.0', npm: '8.19.2' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }

[joelanman]

hmm not great, might be best to do a release - lets see what the rest of the team think

[lfdebrux]

Looks like v12 can support Node 18 happily: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-prototype-kit/pull/1700

[nataliecarey]

I'd suggest:

• We make a minor/patch release to v12 of the kit specify node 18 support
• We document our support of node 18 within v13 of the kit
• We remove node 12 support in v13 of the kit

[joelanman]

@nataliecarey in case you missed it, the wider version support discussion with a recent update is here: https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-prototype-kit/issues/1124#issuecomment-1282395190

[lfdebrux]

This was done for v12 in https://github.com/alphagov/govuk-prototype-kit/pull/1700, and v13 is already tested with Node 18, so I'm going to call this ticket done and close it.