Community maintenance of `actions/setup-node`?

[dominykas]

It doesn't seem like actions/setup-node#26 will get resolved any time soon. There are other features requested (incl. PRs open) that don't seem to be getting the attention they deserve.

Should Node.js have an official action of its own?

This way we could implement the keywords support, and possibly we could recommend a different default matrix to the users.

The default matrix does have a tradeoff - right now,
a maintainer has to add new versions each time, if we recommended, say [ lts-1, lts, latest ] as the default, then the tested versions would drop off without notice, but I figure that testing in latest versions is more valuable than testing in unsupported versions, even if breaking that support means the need to bump semver major.

Related: #416

[ljharb]

I've got the node/matrix and node/install actions under https://github.com/ljharb/actions, the latter of which uses nvm. It currently doesn't support windows but only because i haven't gotten around to it. I use it on all 2-300 of my projects. nvm supports lts/*, lts/argon etc, and lts/-1 etc.

In other words, even if folks wanted to use setup-node, they could still use my matrix action to automatically support whatever versions they like. Here's an example: https://github.com/ljharb/unbox-primitive/blob/main/.github/workflows/node-4%2B.yml#L6-L23

[dominykas]

Without the shareable workflows that's a lot of boilerplate to copy/paste... And shareable workflows got bumped to Q3.

Not saying we shouldn't recommend it, just that the matrix is still a burden... Any chance you managed to get around to automating the maintenance of distributing the boilerplate?

Also it's not that you're a some random dude online, but part of the reason why I raised this is to see if it would be useful to make it "official"?

[ljharb]

No, I still haven't solved that, unfortunately.

tbh I think that once there's shareable workflows, there's a lot less value in having an official one.

[dominykas]

Well, once there's shareable workflows, there's still the benefit of having this moved out into a community... If we can form a community around it specifically.

That said, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the shareable workflows...

[bnb]

FWIW it seems like the root point in this issue (actions/setup-node#26) was addressed: actions/setup-node#26 (comment)

[ljharb]

True enough, but that it took so long to do something so basic suggests that indeed we need something owned by the community.