node-lifecycle

Check the lifecycle status (Current, Active LTS, Maintenance, or EOL) of any Node.js version — right from your terminal.

📦 Installation

Option 1: Global install (CLI available anywhere)

npm install -g node-lifecycle

After this, you can run the CLI directly:

node-lifecycle

Option 2: Local install (in your project)

npm install --save-dev node-lifecycle

With a local install, binaries live in node_modules/.bin.

You can run it in one of two ways:

Use npx (simple):

npx node-lifecycle

OR:

Add an npm script:

"scripts": {
  "check-node": "node-lifecycle"
}

Then run:

npm run check-node

Option 3: Run without installing at all

npx node-lifecycle

This will fetch the latest version from npm on demand.

Option 4: CircleCi Only - See CI Config Below

🚀 Usage

Check the status of your current Node.js version:

node-lifecycle

Check the status of a specific version:

node-lifecycle --version=18.20.4

⚙️ Options

| Flag | Description | | ------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | --version=VER | Check this specific Node.js version instead of your current runtime. | | --warn-days=N | Warn if EOL is within N days (default: 180). | | --cache-ttl=SECS | Cache the Node.js release schedule for N seconds (default: 86400 / 24 hours). | | --no-fail | Do not exit with code 2 on EOL (still prints ❌). | | --help | Show help message. |

📋 Examples

Check a Node version close to EOL:

node-lifecycle --version=20.5.0

Use a shorter warning window:

node-lifecycle --warn-days=30

Check with no failure on EOL (useful for CI logs):

node-lifecycle --version=18.20.4 --no-fail

Exit Codes

| Code | Meaning | | ---- | ------------------------------------------ | | 0 | OK (supported) | | 1 | Warning (within warn-days of EOL) | | 2 | EOL (unless --no-fail is used, then 0) |

🧪 CI Integration and GitHub Actions

CircleCI

There are two ways to use node-lifecycle in CircleCI:

Without installing in your repo (uses npx)

This always fetches the latest published version from npm:

jobs:
  verify:
    docker:
      - image: cimg/node:20.12
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run:
          name: Node lifecycle check
          command: npx node-lifecycle --warn-days=180

With devDependencies (preferred if already in your repo)

If you already have node-lifecycle in devDependencies, npm ci will install it and you can run it directly:

jobs:
  verify:
    docker:
      - image: cimg/node:20.12
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run: npm ci
      - run:
          name: Node lifecycle check
          command: node-lifecycle --warn-days=180

GitHub Actions

Example GitHub Actions job to fail if Node.js is near or past EOL:

jobs:
  check-node-lifecycle:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm install -g node-lifecycle
      - run: node-lifecycle

📄 License

MIT © 2025 Kelsey Salguera

Note: This tool fetches Node.js release schedules from official sources (nodejs/Release and endoflife.date) and caches them locally for faster performance.