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A Game-Changer: Fully Automated Release Proposal Marks Year-End Milestone

Node.js Security Updates: October–November 2024

In October and November 2024, the Node.js project reached a major milestone with the launch of its automated release proposal. This advancement, alongside ongoing improvements in security, automation, community engagement, and release processes, marks a significant step forward in enhancing the project's efficiency and reliability.

Here's a summary of the key updates and milestones achieved during this period.

Security Progress

Node.js processed ten security reports—an all-time low—demonstrating the effectiveness of our updated security policies in enhancing overall system protection.

  • One spam
  • Four non-applicable
  • Two informative
  • Two new issues
  • One triaged

The security release workflow saw notable enhancements:

  • The git node release --pre-announcement command now automates website banner updates and blog post locations.
  • CVE-ID metadata is automatically added to changelogs, speeding up security release proposals.

Key contributions:

Releases

Alpha Omega sponsored and released Node.js 23.0.0 (semver-major) and 22.3.0.

Notable updates:

  • The team added a new FAQ section to releases.md to guide release promotions.
  • Major release policy changes: From Node.js 24 onwards, a one-month "baking period" will be required to ensure stable major releases. More details.

Release Automation Enhancements

Automation milestones included creating a fully automated release proposal. Improvements:

  • New flags for git node release:
  • --releaseDate: PR #863
  • --yes: PR #862
  • A new workflow supports automated proposal creation.
  • Updates to CODEOWNERS ensure team approvals for all changes.

Community Contributions

The is-my-node-vulnerable tool, now supporting Node.js versions as early as 0.12, has received positive community feedback. The team is discussing plans to integrate it into Node.js core.

Other contributions:

  • Participation in CityJS Medellin, October 25-26, 2024.
  • Contributions to the annual Node.js Alpha Omega blog post.

General Updates

  • SlowBuffer was runtime deprecated.
  • Permission Model improvements enhanced test coverage and user experience. Details.
  • A new diagnostic flag, --report-exclude-env, was introduced to preserve environment variables. Details.

Looking Ahead

These updates highlight the Node.js project's ongoing commitment to innovation, security, and community collaboration. Stay tuned as we continue to enhance the platform and deliver solutions for developers worldwide.

Get Involved

Interested in getting involved with Node.js security? We are actively looking for new contributors! Find out more about the Node.js Security Team here: https://github.com/nodejs/security-wg. 

If you want to join Node.js, you can contribute in multiple ways and places. Please see here for more details: https://nodejs.org/en/get-involved/contribute. We also have a Slack channel for Node.js first contribution guidance. Join `#nodejs-mentoring` if you're interested.