doc: add maintaining info for shared libary option

Refs: #41850

I think it would be good to have some info/context
for maintainers on the shared library option. Add that
based on disussion in #41850

Signed-off-by: Michael Dawson <[email protected]>

PR-URL: #42517
Reviewed-By: Matteo Collina <[email protected]>
Reviewed-By: Gireesh Punathil <[email protected]>

doc/contributing/maintaining-shared-library-support.md

@@ -0,0 +1,117 @@
+# Maintaining shared library support
+
+Node.js unofficially supports a build option where Node.js is built as
+a shared library. The shared library is called libnode with additional postfixes
+as appropriate for the platform (for example libnode.dll on windows).
+The shared library provides a way to embed Node.js into other
+applications and to have multiple applications use a single copy of
+Node.js instead of having to bundle in the full Node.js footprint
+into each application. For workloads that require multiple Node.js
+instances this can result in a significant footprint savings.
+
+This document provides an outline of the approach and things to look
+out for when maintaining the shared library support.
+
+Currently, shared library support has only been tested on:
+
+* Linux
+* macOS
+* Windows
+* AIX
+
+## Building with shared library option
+
+On non-Windows platoforms, Node.js is built with the shared library
+option by adding `--shared` to the configure step. On Windows
+platofrms Node.js is built with the shared library option by
+adding `dll` to the vcbuild command line.
+
+Once built there are two key components:
+
+* executable - node
+* library - libnode
+
+The node executable is a thin wrapper around libnode which is
+generated so that we can run the standard Node.js test suite
+against the shared library.
+
+The executable and library will have extensions as appropriate
+for the platform on which they are built. For
+example, node.exe on windows and node on other platforms for
+the executable.
+
+libnode may have additional naming components, as an example
+in a build on macOS `libnode.105.dylib`. For non-windows platforms
+the additional naming components include the `NODE_MODULE_VERSION` and
+the appropriate postfix used for shared libraries on the platform.
+
+In cases where an application links against the shared
+library it is up to the application developer to add options
+so that the shared library can be found by the application or
+to set the LIBPATH (AIX), LD\_LIBRARY\_PATH (Linux/Unix), etc.
+so that it is found at runtime.
+
+For the node wrapper, on linux and macOS it is built
+so that it can find the shared library in one of
+the following:
+
+* the same directory as the node executable
+* ../lib with the expectation that the executable is
+  installed in a `bin` directory at the same level
+  as a `lib` directory in which the shared library is
+  installed. This is where the default package that
+  is build with the shared library option will
+  place the executable and library.
+
+For the node wrapper on windows it is built expecting
+that both the executable and shared library will
+be in the same directory as it common practice on
+that platform.
+
+For the node wrapper on AIX, it is built with
+the path to the shared library hardcoded as that
+is the only option.
+
+## Exports
+
+On windows, functions that may be linked from native
+addons or additional Node.js executables need to have
+NODE\_EXTERN\_PRIVATE or NODE\_EXTERN otherwise they will
+not be exported by the shared library. In the case of
+functions used by additional Node.js executables
+(ex: `mksnapshot`) a missing NODE\_EXTERN or
+NODE\_EXTERN\_PRIVATE will cause the build to fail.
+NODE\_EXTERN\_PRIVATE should be used in these cases
+unless the intent is to add the function to the
+public embedder API.
+
+## Native addons
+
+For regular Node.js builds, running native addons relies on symbols
+exported by the node executable. As a result any
+pre-built binaries expect symbols to be exported from the executable
+instead of the shared library itself.
+
+The node executable and shared library are built and linked
+so that the required symbols are exported from the node
+executable. This requires some extra work on some platforms
+and the process to build the node executable is a good example
+of how this can be achieved. Applications that use the shared
+library and want to support native addons should employ
+a similar technique.
+
+## Testing
+
+There is currently no testing in the regular CI run for PRs. There
+are some CI jobs that can be used to test the shared library support and
+some are run as part of daily testing. These include:
+
+* [node-test-commit-linux-as-shared-lib](https://ci.nodejs.org/view/Node.js%20Daily/job/node-test-commit-linux-as-shared-lib/)
+* <https://ci.nodejs.org/view/All/job/node-test-commit-osx-as-shared-lib/>
+* [node-test-commit-aix-shared-lib](https://ci.nodejs.org/view/Node.js%20Daily/job/node-test-commit-aix-shared-lib/)
+
+TODO: add a Job for windows
+
+For code that modifies/affects shared library support these CI jobs should
+run and it should be validated that there are no regressions in
+the test suite.