nodejs/node-gyp

node-gyp - Node.js native addon build tool

node-gyp is a cross-platform command-line tool written in Node.js for compiling native addon modules for Node.js. It contains a vendored copy of the gyp-next project that was previously used by the Chromium team and extended to support the development of Node.js native addons.

Note that node-gyp is not used to build Node.js itself.

All current and LTS target versions of Node.js are supported. Depending on what version of Node.js is actually installed on your system node-gyp downloads the necessary development files or headers for the target version. List of stable Node.js versions can be found on Node.js website.

Features

• The same build commands work on any of the supported platforms
• Supports the targeting of different versions of Node.js

Installation

[!Important] Python >= v3.12 requires node-gyp >= v10

You can install node-gyp using npm:

npm install -g node-gyp

Depending on your operating system, you will need to install:

On Unix

• A supported version of Python
• make
• A proper C/C++ compiler toolchain, like GCC

On macOS

• A supported version of Python
• Xcode Command Line Tools which will install clang, clang++, and make.
  • Install the Xcode Command Line Tools standalone by running xcode-select --install. -- OR --
  • Alternatively, if you already have the full Xcode installed, you can install the Command Line Tools under the menu Xcode -> Open Developer Tool -> More Developer Tools....

On Windows

Install tools with Chocolatey using the visualstudio2026-workload-vctools package:

choco install python visualstudio2026-workload-vctools -y

Or install and configure Python and Visual Studio tools manually:

• Follow the instructions in Using Python on Windows to install the current version of Python.

• Install Visual C++ Build Environment: For Visual Studio 2019 or later, use the Desktop development with C++ workload from Visual Studio Community. For a version older than Visual Studio 2019, install Visual Studio Build Tools with the Visual C++ build tools option.

To target native ARM64 Node.js on Windows on ARM, add the components "Visual C++ compilers and libraries for ARM64" and "Visual C++ ATL for ARM64".

To use the native ARM64 C++ compiler on Windows on ARM, ensure that you have Visual Studio 2022 17.4 or later installed.

It's advised to install the following PowerShell module: VSSetup using Install-Module VSSetup -Scope CurrentUser. This will make Visual Studio detection logic use a more flexible and accessible method, avoiding PowerShell's ConstrainedLanguage mode.

Configuring Python Dependency

node-gyp requires that you have installed a supported version of Python. If you have multiple versions of Python installed, you can identify which version node-gyp should use in one of the following ways:

1. by setting the --python command-line option, e.g.:

node-gyp <command> --python /path/to/executable/python

2. If node-gyp is called by way of npm, and you have multiple versions of Python installed, then you can set the npm_config_python environment variable to the appropriate path:

export npm_config_python=/path/to/executable/python

    Or on Windows:

py --list-paths  # To see the installed Python versions
set npm_config_python=C:\path\to\python.exe  # CMD
$Env:npm_config_python="C:\path\to\python.exe"  # PowerShell

3. If the PYTHON environment variable is set to the path of a Python executable, then that version will be used if it is a supported version.

4. If the NODE_GYP_FORCE_PYTHON environment variable is set to the path of a Python executable, it will be used instead of any of the other configured or built-in Python search paths. If it's not a compatible version, no further searching will be done.

Build for Third Party Node.js Runtimes

When building modules for third-party Node.js runtimes like Electron, which have different build configurations from the official Node.js distribution, you should use --dist-url or --nodedir flags to specify the headers of the runtime to build for.

Also when --dist-url or --nodedir flags are passed, node-gyp will use the config.gypi shipped in the headers distribution to generate build configurations, which is different from the default mode that would use the process.config object of the running Node.js instance.

Some old versions of Electron shipped malformed config.gypi in their headers distributions, and you might need to pass --force-process-config to node-gyp to work around configuration errors.

How to Use

To compile your native addon first go to its root directory:

cd my_node_addon

The next step is to generate the appropriate project build files for the current platform. Use configure for that:

node-gyp configure

Auto-detection fails for Visual C++ Build Tools 2015, so --msvs_version=2015 needs to be added (not needed when run by npm as configured above):

node-gyp configure --msvs_version=2015

Note: The configure step looks for a binding.gyp file in the current directory to process. See below for instructions on creating a binding.gyp file.

Now you will have either a Makefile (on Unix platforms) or a vcxproj file (on Windows) in the build/ directory. Next, invoke the build command:

node-gyp build

Now you have your compiled .node bindings file! The compiled bindings end up in build/Debug/ or build/Release/, depending on the build mode. At this point, you can require the .node file with Node.js and run your tests!

Note: To create a Debug build of the bindings file, pass the --debug (or -d) switch when running either the configure, build or rebuild commands.

The binding.gyp file

A binding.gyp file describes the configuration to build your module, in a JSON-like format. This file gets placed in the root of your package, alongside package.json.

A barebones gyp file appropriate for building a Node.js addon could look like:

{
  "targets": [
    {
      "target_name": "binding",
      "sources": [ "src/binding.cc" ]
    }
  ]
}

Further reading

The docs directory contains additional documentation on specific node-gyp topics that may be useful if you are experiencing problems installing or building addons using node-gyp.

Some additional resources for Node.js native addons and writing gyp configuration files:

• "Going Native" a nodeschool.io tutorial
• "Hello World" node addon example
• gyp user documentation
• gyp input format reference
• "binding.gyp" files out in the wild wiki page

Commands

node-gyp responds to the following commands:

Command Options

node-gyp accepts the following command options:

Configuration

package.json

Use the config object in your package.json with each key in the form node_gyp_OPTION_NAME. Any of the command options listed above can be set (dashes in option names should be replaced by underscores).

For example, to set devdir equal to /tmp/.gyp, your package.json would contain this:

{
  "config": {
    "node_gyp_devdir": "/tmp/.gyp"
  }
}

Environment variables

Use the form npm_package_config_node_gyp_OPTION_NAME for any of the command options listed above (dashes in option names should be replaced by underscores).

For example, to set devdir equal to /tmp/.gyp, you would:

Run this on Unix:

export npm_package_config_node_gyp_devdir=/tmp/.gyp

Or this on Windows:

set npm_package_config_node_gyp_devdir=c:\temp\.gyp

Note that in versions of npm before v11 it was possible to use the prefix npm_config_ for environment variables. This was deprecated in npm@11 and will be removed in npm@12 so it is recommended to convert your environment variables to the above format.

npm configuration for npm versions before v9

Use the form OPTION_NAME for any of the command options listed above.

For example, to set devdir equal to /tmp/.gyp, you would run:

npm config set [--global] devdir /tmp/.gyp

Note: Configuration set via npm will only be used when node-gyp is run via npm, not when node-gyp is run directly.

License

node-gyp is available under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for details.