Update Node.js version support (16, 18, 20)

[orangejulius]

It's been a while since we've performed the regular chore of adding support for newer Node.js versions.

The last one we did was Node.js 12 back in early 2020, and v12 is now EOL.

I propose we go straight to the newest versions of Node.js, adding support for all currently maintained versions: 16, 18, and 20.

What needs to be done

For each of our code repositories, we need to:

• fix anything in our own code that does not support these new versions,
• Update any dependencies with the same issue and then:
• Update the versions of Node.js used in CI
• Update the Dockerfiles to use a base image with a newer Node.js version

The usual suspects

Generally we've found Node.js upgrades aren't too hard, with most of the work being repetitive changes to CI and Docker configs.

The things that usually cause issue are:

• the better-sqlite3 Node.js module, which we use extensively
• the interpolation service, and specifically it's dependency on libpostal through the node-postal npm module

Please link to this issue

Please link to this tracking issue in any commits or PR that involve these Node.js upgrades, so we can find the status of everything in one place.

[orangejulius]

Alright, I did just a little bit of investigation into this and here's what I've found:

• "Node.js only" repos like the API will support up to Node.js 20 just fine
• better-sqlite3 version 8.4.0 (we use 7.x everywhere right now) is required for Node.js 20 support
• node-postal currently works with Node.js up to 16
• It looks like Nodejs 18 and 20 require software packages included in Ubuntu 20, which we use in CI, but are not included in Ubuntu 18, which we currently base all our Docker images on

Based on that last one, we might want to upgrade everything (including Docker images) to Node.js 16 for now, just to get off an EOL Node.js version, then upgrade our Docker images to Ubuntu 20 (which might require a bit of work itself), and then work on Node.js 18 and 20 support. We also might want to support different versions of Node.js temporarily for the interpolation service/node-postal, so that all the other packages can use a newer version sooner.

[michaelkirk]

Let me know if you'd like help with this @orangejulius.