developers

Node 18 Now Available for Actions, Rules, and Hooks

Unlock a more secure extensibility experience with Node 18 latest LTS.

Oliver Wang

Product Manager, Ecosystem

Jul 18, 2023 • 3 min read

You can unlock an even simpler developer experience when extending Auth0 – with Node.js 18 now available for Actions, Rules, and Hooks.

For security and compliance purposes, we strongly encourage you to stay current in Node versions. Starting today, Auth0 customers will see the option to upgrade from Node 12/16 to Node 18. This allows customers to leverage the long-term support (LTS) offered by Node.js 18.

What Does This Mean for Our Developers?

Although Node.js 12 and 16 will remain available, their usage may not be consistent with industry standards due to the end of LTS. It is important to note that as of September 11, 2023, the Node.js community will stop supporting Node 16, including software patches, security fixes, and beyond.

When creating new Actions, Developers will see Node 18 as the 

RECOMMENDED
and 
DEFAULT
 option. Node 16/12 turns into the 
NOT RECOMMENDED
 option. Existing Actions will remain on Node 16/12. However, developers can upgrade existing Actions to Node 18 by creating a new version of the existing Action and selecting Node 18. Please refer to our updated Migration to Node 18 documentation for guidance on upgrading your code to Node.js 18.

For customers using Node 18 Beta, bump up your Actions version today to switch to Node 18 GA by September 11, 2023, before we end support for Node 18.

Benefits of Node 18

Node 18 offers a number of benefits compared to previous Node versions:

  • Integrated global 
    fetch
    :     In previous node versions, the 
    fetch
    API had to be installed via a third-party package. In Node 18, 
    fetch
    is available as a native feature, reducing lines of code and streamlining HTTP requests. In addition to 
    fetch
    , other global APIs are available by default in Node 18, such as 
    FormData
    , 
    Headers
    , 
    Request
    , and 
    Response
    .
  • Updated JavaScript engine: Older Node iterations executed JavaScript via Google V8. Node 18 executes JavaScript using the updated version 10.1 to help boost the performance of web applications.
  • Built-in testing: Previous Node versions lacked built-in test runners. Node 18 instead allows you to create and execute tests without intervention from a third-party package before adding your code to Actions.

Move to Actions for a Standalone-Node Execution Experience

Tired of updating Node versions frequently or need different Node versions for different extensibility products? Try Actions today. Actions allow you to apply different Node versions to individual Actions with more flexibility, so you don’t have to restrict all your Actions to one Node version under global tenant settings.

Actions is our next-generation extensibility platform, designed to replace Rules and Hooks. As a result, our plan is to support every current and long-term supported Node version through Actions exclusively.

This means that we will be ending Node support for Rules and Hooks in the future. To get ahead of this, customers should upgrade from Rules and Hooks to Actions.

We want to hear from you. Please share any feedback on your experience with our extensibility tools and Actions in our Developer Community.