Support node20 in runs for JavaScript actions

[kroese]

It would be very handy if Node 20 was supported in runs for Javascript actions, so that you could do:

runs:
  using: 'node20'
  main: 'index.js'

But currently only node12 and node16 are available, which is strange because all runners default to node18 now.

[MikeMcC399]

But currently only node12 and node16 are available, which is strange because all runners default to node18 now.

node12 is being force-updated to use node16, and node12 is no longer listed in the documentation (https://docs.github.com/en/actions/creating-actions/metadata-syntax-for-github-actions#runsusing-for-javascript-actions)

At this stage, supporting node20 would probably make more sense which would give the change a longer lifetime.

[TomasHubelbauer]

A jump straight to Node 20 would be amazing. It is clear there is some effort involved in bumping the runtime versions of these JavaScript-based Actions and until this can be done in a more automated / less work intensive way, it probably makes sense to make bigger leaps across the versions otherwise there is a risk of not being able to pull the update off before the EOL window of the given current version. We're pretty close to Node 16 EOL as it stands (a bit over 3 months now: https://endoflife.date/nodejs).

[MikeMcC399]

Currently https://github.blog/changelog/2023-05-04-github-actions-all-actions-will-run-on-node16-instead-of-node12/ says

we will start enforcing the use of Node16 rather than Node12 on the 14th of June.

(2023)

[Hyokune]

I would also love for the support for node18 to come through since we're upgrading all of our applications and actions to 18 but if this is the only one that doesn't support 18, it's going to have to be out of sync to the rest of our system.

[MikeMcC399]

It would be great to see a GitHub response to this issue or to the product feedback request in https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/53217.

We are still in the dark concerning future planning.

Node.js 16 End-of-Life is planned for Sep 11, 2023.

[alexpeterson91]

Yeah we're having some issues with our CI/CD since we've updated our SDK to use node18, we've updated our GHAs to use checkoutV3 so it uses node 16 at least but were having a bunch of issues not being able to use node18 in our non self hosted runners, Would really like to know if Node18 is gonna be supported since we cant upgrade everything to node20, we really want to know if and when Node18 will be integrated.

[DariuszPorowski]

JFYI potential ugly temporary workaround for action authors: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/53217#discussioncomment-6227341

[MikeMcC399]

Without a resolution to this issue there is no long-term future for GitHub JavaScript Actions. It is difficult to understand why there has been no response so far. It's a critical piece of functionality to provide an upgrade path.

[rethab]

@benwells from GitHub has commented on this yesterday: https://github.com/actions/runner/discussions/2704