Published packages do not declare the supported Node.js engine

[TrevorKarjanis]

Describe the issue
None of the published packages declare the version of Node.js they support with the engines field in package.json. If this is dictated by dependencies like ESLint, it should be declared and would aid when clients upgrade these dependencies or Node.js. Once ESLint 9 is supported, I think this will be easy to resolve.

• eslint-config-javascript/package.json
• eslint-config-typescript/package.json
• eslint-config-angular/package.json
• eslint-config-playwright/package.json

Not specifying the engines field is technically equivalent to * and means any version. This is not reliable, though. More likely, a package of interest does not support support any version and simply did not declare which versions it does. If a package declares support for specific versions of engines, they can be viewed with the following command.
npm view <package name>[@package version] engines

[rajsite]

Are we not already covered by our dependency on eslint? I'd expect in practice on install npm would resolve that for us and tell the user the engine version isn't supported. I'd prefer to not need to manually track what version is supported by our dependencies.

We could include it based on the node features our packages themselves directly rely on (i.e. es modules support) but I wouldn't want to need to keep up-to-date with our dependencies unless it had some specific benefit.

[TrevorKarjanis]

[Edit] Including it based on the node features our package uses directly would not be appropriate. I would prefer to track what version is supported, because it is the top-level dependencies that are evaluated when upgrading. This is not incredibly important nor does it have to be perfect all of the time, but as I stated above, I don't think this would be difficult. I'm not concerned about the required amount of work.

[rajsite]

I don't think I fully follow your test strategy. Trying the following:
node v16.20.2
npm 8.19.4

with a package.json listing the only dependency as:

  "devDependencies": {
    "@ni/eslint-config-typescript": "^4.4.0"
  }

I get the following output:

$ npm install
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@stylistic/eslint-plugin@3.1.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/parser@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/utils@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: 'eslint-visitor-keys@4.2.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: 'espree@10.4.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/scope-manager@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/type-utils@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/utils@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/visitor-keys@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/types@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/typescript-estree@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/utils@7.18.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || >=20.0.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/scope-manager@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/types@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/typescript-estree@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/visitor-keys@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/project-service@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/tsconfig-utils@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: 'ts-api-utils@2.1.0',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '>=18.12' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN EBADENGINE Unsupported engine {
npm WARN EBADENGINE   package: '@typescript-eslint/types@8.44.1',
npm WARN EBADENGINE   required: { node: '^18.18.0 || ^20.9.0 || >=21.1.0' },
npm WARN EBADENGINE   current: { node: 'v16.20.2', npm: '8.19.4' }
npm WARN EBADENGINE }
npm WARN deprecated inflight@1.0.6: This module is not supported, and leaks memory. Do not use it. Check out lru-cache if you want a good and tested way to coalesce async requests by a key value, which is much more comprehensive and powerful.
npm WARN deprecated @humanwhocodes/config-array@0.13.0: Use @eslint/config-array instead
npm WARN deprecated rimraf@3.0.2: Rimraf versions prior to v4 are no longer supported
npm WARN deprecated glob@7.2.3: Glob versions prior to v9 are no longer supported
npm WARN deprecated @humanwhocodes/object-schema@2.0.3: Use @eslint/object-schema instead
npm WARN deprecated eslint@8.57.1: This version is no longer supported. Please see https://eslint.org/version-support for other options.

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So I stand that npm is giving clear output to users about our transitive dependencies and it seems appropriate that we don't need to list it or we list based on the features we use for our package. I won't block you if you want to maintain it but I don't see any clear benefit since everything is already reported.

[TrevorKarjanis]

I don't want to evaluate transitive dependencies if they are not going to resolve the issue. They're complicated, and a user of the linter configuration may not be a maintainer of the linter configuration. [Edit] It is not clear from the example output you provided how to resolve the issue or if it is resolvable. Whether this is implemented and this bug resolved will remain to be seen, but that is the value.

I corrected my test. That was the warning for ESlint 8's EOL. I am running Node.js 22 and 24, because ESLint is a development dependency.