Continuous integration

In CI you want an install that's reproducible and fails loudly when the lockfile is stale. craft does that by default when the CI environment variable is set, which every major CI provider does.

Install

craft ci

craft ci removes node_modules and installs exactly what craft.lock records. It fails, before downloading anything, when craft.lock is missing or doesn't match package.json, listing every difference. craft install behaves the same way under CI, without removing node_modules first.

Production images can leave out devDependencies:

craft install --frozen-lockfile --production

Cache the store

craft ci needs no registry metadata, only tarballs, and finds those in the store when it's warm. Cache ~/.craft/store (or $CRAFT_HOME/store) keyed on the lockfile.

GitHub Actions

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22

      - name: Install craft
        run: |
          curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/craftpkg/craft/main/install.sh | bash
          echo "$HOME/.local/bin" >> "$GITHUB_PATH"

      - uses: actions/cache@v4
        with:
          path: ~/.craft/store
          key: craft-${{ runner.os }}-${{ hashFiles('craft.lock') }}
          restore-keys: craft-${{ runner.os }}-

      - run: craft ci
      - run: craft test

GitLab CI

test:
  image: node:22
  variables:
    CRAFT_HOME: "$CI_PROJECT_DIR/.craft"
  cache:
    key:
      files: [craft.lock]
    paths: [.craft/store]
  before_script:
    - curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/craftpkg/craft/main/install.sh | bash
    - export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
  script:
    - craft ci
    - craft test

Docker

FROM node:22-slim AS deps
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends curl ca-certificates \
 && curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/craftpkg/craft/main/install.sh | bash
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json craft.lock ./
RUN craft install --frozen-lockfile --production

FROM node:22-slim
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=deps /app/node_modules ./node_modules
COPY . .
CMD ["node", "server.js"]

On Alpine images, the install script picks craft's static musl build.

Output

On a terminal craft shows a single live status line. In CI, when output isn't a terminal, or with --debug, it prints plain lines instead, and --silent prints only warnings and errors. Exit codes are non-zero on any failure; a failing script's own exit code passes through.