.ebextensions with CodePipeline and Elastic Beanstalk - node.js

Question

I started working on my first CodePipeline with node.js app which is hosted on github. I would like to create simple pipe as follow:
Github repo triggers pipe
Test env (Elastic Beanstalk app) is built from S3 .zip file
Test env runs npm test and npm lint
If everything is OK then QA env (another EB app) is built
For above pipe I've created .config files under .ebextensions directory:
I would like to use npm install --production for QA and PROD env, but it seems that EC2 can't find node nor npm. I checked logs and EC2 triggered npm install by default in temporary folder, then it fails on my first script and app catalogue is always empty.
container_commands:
install-dev:
command: "npm install"
test: "[ \"$NODE_ENV\" = \"TEST\" ]"
ignoreErrors: false
install-prod:
command: "npm install --production"
test: "[ \"$NODE_ENV\" != \"TEST\" ]"
ignoreErrors: false
Is it posible to run unit tests and linting without jenkins?
container_commands:
lint:
command: "npm run lint"
test: "[ \"$NODE_ENV\" = \"TEST\" ]"
ignoreErrors: false
test:
command: "npm run test"
test: "[ \"$NODE_ENV\" = \"TEST\" ]"
ignoreErrors: false
I set NODE_ENV for each Elastic Beanstalk instance. No matter what I will do every time my pipe fails because of npm is not recognized, but how is it possible if I'm running 64bit Amazon Linux with node.js ? What's more I cannot find any examples about CodePipeline with node.js in AWS Docs. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

If you're using AWS for CI/CD, you can use CodeBuild. However, Github provides a great feature called Actions for running Unit Tests, which I find much simpler than AWS. Anyway, I will walk you through both examples:
Using AWS for running Unit Tests
Essentially, you could create a new stage into your CodePipeline, and configure the CodeBuild for running Unit Tests, e.g.
First, add a buildspec.yml file in the root folder of your app so you can use the following example:
version: 0.2
phases:
install:
runtime-versions:
nodejs: 10
commands:
- echo Installing Mocha globally...
- npm install -g mocha
pre_build:
commands:
- echo Installing dependencies...
- npm install
- npm install unit.js
build:
commands:
- echo Build started on `date`
- echo Run Unit Tests and so on
- npm run test
- npm run lint
post_build:
commands:
- echo Build completed on `date`
# THIS IS OPTIONAL
artifacts:
files:
- app.js
- package.json
- src/app/*
- node_modules/**/*
You can find everything you need in the BackSpace Academy, this course is for free:
AWS DevOps CI/CD - CodePipeline, Elastic Beanstalk and Mocha
Using Github for running Unit Tests
You could create your custom actions using Github, it will automatically set up everything you need in your root folder, e.g.
After choosing the appropriate workflow, it will automatically generate a folder/file ".github > workflow > nodejs.yml".
So it will look like this:
name: Node CI
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
strategy:
matrix:
node-version: [8.x, 10.x, 12.x]
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout#v1
- name: Use Node.js ${{ matrix.node-version }}
uses: actions/setup-node#v1
with:
node-version: ${{ matrix.node-version }}
- name: npm install, build, and test
run: |
npm install
npm run build --if-present
npm test
env:
CI: true
I hope you could find everything you need in this answer. Cheers

Answer 2

Have you incorporated CodeBuild into your pipeline?
You should
1) Create a pipeline whose source is your github account. Go through the setup procedure so that commits on a particular branch trigger the Codepipeline
2) Create a test stage in your Codepipeline which leverages the CodeBuild service. In order to run your Node tests, you might need to provide a configured build environment. And you probably also need to provide a build spec file that specifies the tests to run etc.
3) Assuming that the test stage passes, you can determine if the pipeline continues to another stage which is linked to an elasticbeanstalk app environment which supports the Node platform. These environments are purely for artifacts that have passed testing, so I see no need to have the .ebextensions commands written above.
Have a read of what CodeBuild can do to help you run tests for Node,
https://aws.amazon.com/codebuild/
Good luck!