node-gyp - Node.js native addon build tool

node-gyp is a cross-platform command-line tool written in Node.js for compiling native addon modules for Node.js. It contains a vendored copy of the gyp-next project that was previously used by the Chromium team, extended to support the development of Node.js native addons.

Note that node-gyp is not used to build Node.js itself.

Multiple target versions of Node.js are supported (i.e. 0.8, ..., 4, 5, 6, etc.), regardless of what version of Node.js is actually installed on your system (node-gyp downloads the necessary development files or headers for the target version).

Features

• The same build commands work on any of the supported platforms
• Supports the targeting of different versions of Node.js

Installation

You can install node-gyp using npm:

npm install -g node-gyp

Depending on your operating system, you will need to install:

On Unix

• Python v3.7, v3.8, v3.9, or v3.10
• make
• A proper C/C++ compiler toolchain, like GCC

On macOS

ATTENTION: If your Mac has been upgraded to macOS Catalina (10.15) or higher, please read macOS_Catalina.md.

• Python v3.7, v3.8, v3.9, or v3.10
• XCode Command Line Tools which will install clang, clang++, and make.
  • Install the XCode Command Line Tools standalone by running xcode-select --install. -- OR --
  • Alternatively, if you already have the full Xcode installed, you can install the Command Line Tools under the menu Xcode -> Open Developer Tool -> More Developer Tools....

On Windows

Install the current version of Python from the Microsoft Store package.

Install tools and configuration manually:

• Install Visual C++ Build Environment: Visual Studio Build Tools (using "Visual C++ build tools" workload) or Visual Studio Community (using the "Desktop development with C++" workload)
• Launch cmd, npm config set msvs_version 2017

If the above steps didn't work for you, please visit Microsoft's Node.js Guidelines for Windows for additional tips.

To target native ARM64 Node.js on Windows 10 on ARM, add the components "Visual C++ compilers and libraries for ARM64" and "Visual C++ ATL for ARM64".

Configuring Python Dependency

node-gyp requires that you have installed a compatible version of Python, one of: v3.7, v3.8, v3.9, or v3.10. If you have multiple Python versions installed, you can identify which Python version node-gyp should use in one of the following ways:

1. by setting the --python command-line option, e.g.:

node-gyp <command> --python /path/to/executable/python

2. If node-gyp is called by way of npm, and you have multiple versions of Python installed, then you can set npm's 'python' config key to the appropriate value:

npm config set python /path/to/executable/python

3. If the PYTHON environment variable is set to the path of a Python executable, then that version will be used, if it is a compatible version.

4. If the NODE_GYP_FORCE_PYTHON environment variable is set to the path of a Python executable, it will be used instead of any of the other configured or builtin Python search paths. If it's not a compatible version, no further searching will be done.

Build for Third Party Node.js Runtimes

When building modules for third party Node.js runtimes like Electron, which have different build configurations from the official Node.js distribution, you should use --dist-url or --nodedir flags to specify the headers of the runtime to build for.

Also when --dist-url or --nodedir flags are passed, node-gyp will use the config.gypi shipped in the headers distribution to generate build configurations, which is different from the default mode that would use the process.config object of the running Node.js instance.

Some old versions of Electron shipped malformed config.gypi in their headers distributions, and you might need to pass --force-process-config to node-gyp to work around configuration errors.

How to Use

To compile your native addon, first go to its root directory:

cd my_node_addon

The next step is to generate the appropriate project build files for the current platform. Use configure for that:

node-gyp configure

Auto-detection fails for Visual C++ Build Tools 2015, so --msvs_version=2015 needs to be added (not needed when run by npm as configured above):

node-gyp configure --msvs_version=2015

Note: The configure step looks for a binding.gyp file in the current directory to process. See below for instructions on creating a binding.gyp file.

Now you will have either a Makefile (on Unix platforms) or a vcxproj file (on Windows) in the build/ directory. Next, invoke the build command:

node-gyp build

Now you have your compiled .node bindings file! The compiled bindings end up in build/Debug/ or build/Release/, depending on the build mode. At this point, you can require the .node file with Node.js and run your tests!

Note: To create a Debug build of the bindings file, pass the --debug (or -d) switch when running either the configure, build or rebuild commands.

The binding.gyp file

A binding.gyp file describes the configuration to build your module, in a JSON-like format. This file gets placed in the root of your package, alongside package.json.

A barebones gyp file appropriate for building a Node.js addon could look like:

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "target_name": "binding",
      "sources": [ "src/binding.cc" ]
    }
  ]
}

Further reading

The docs directory contains additional documentation on specific node-gyp topics that may be useful if you are experiencing problems installing or building addons using node-gyp.

Some additional resources for Node.js native addons and writing gyp configuration files:

• "Going Native" a nodeschool.io tutorial
• "Hello World" node addon example
• gyp user documentation
• gyp input format reference
• "binding.gyp" files out in the wild wiki page

Commands

node-gyp responds to the following commands:

Command	Description
help	Shows the help dialog
build	Invokes make/msbuild.exe and builds the native addon
clean	Removes the build directory if it exists
configure	Generates project build files for the current platform
rebuild	Runs clean, configure and build all in a row
install	Installs Node.js header files for the given version
list	Lists the currently installed Node.js header versions
remove	Removes the Node.js header files for the given version

Command Options

node-gyp accepts the following command options:

Command	Description
-j n, --jobs n	Run make in parallel. The value max will use all available CPU cores
--target=v6.2.1	Node.js version to build for (default is process.version)
--silly, --loglevel=silly	Log all progress to console
--verbose, --loglevel=verbose	Log most progress to console
--silent, --loglevel=silent	Don't log anything to console
debug, --debug	Make Debug build (default is Release)
--release, --no-debug	Make Release build
-C $dir, --directory=$dir	Run command in different directory
--make=$make	Override make command (e.g. gmake)
--thin=yes	Enable thin static libraries
--arch=$arch	Set target architecture (e.g. ia32)
--tarball=$path	Get headers from a local tarball
--devdir=$path	SDK download directory (default is OS cache directory)
--ensure	Don't reinstall headers if already present
--dist-url=$url	Download header tarball from custom URL
--proxy=$url	Set HTTP(S) proxy for downloading header tarball
--noproxy=$urls	Set urls to ignore proxies when downloading header tarball
--cafile=$cafile	Override default CA chain (to download tarball)
--nodedir=$path	Set the path to the node source code
--python=$path	Set path to the Python binary
--msvs_version=$version	Set Visual Studio version (Windows only)
--solution=$solution	Set Visual Studio Solution version (Windows only)
--force-process-config	Force using runtime's process.config object to generate config.gypi file

Configuration

Environment variables

Use the form npm_config_OPTION_NAME for any of the command options listed above (dashes in option names should be replaced by underscores).

For example, to set devdir equal to /tmp/.gyp, you would:

Run this on Unix:

export npm_config_devdir=/tmp/.gyp

Or this on Windows:

set npm_config_devdir=c:\temp\.gyp

npm configuration

Use the form OPTION_NAME for any of the command options listed above.

For example, to set devdir equal to /tmp/.gyp, you would run:

npm config set [--global] devdir /tmp/.gyp

Note: Configuration set via npm will only be used when node-gyp is run via npm, not when node-gyp is run directly.

License

node-gyp is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for details.