enginedrift

Three places in a Node project quietly name a Node version: engines.node in package.json, the node-version values in CI, and the FROM node:... tags in a Dockerfile. When they disagree, the failure usually shows up late — a CI job running a different major than the container, or a syntax feature that works in one place and not another. enginedrift extracts what each source actually declares and reports the drift up front.

It answers with:

• drift — true when sources declare conflicting majors, or a source sits entirely below package.json's declared minimum

• sources — one entry per provided source, with the raw declared strings, the majors found (ascending, unique), and a note when a source cannot pin a major (for example a CI node-version-file key)

• issues — in a fixed order: MAJOR_MISMATCH (distinct majors across sources), BELOW_MINIMUM (a source entirely below package.json's minimum major), UNPINNED_IMAGE (a Dockerfile FROM node with no numeric tag, such as lts-alpine or latest), and NO_ENGINES (package.json declares no engines.node)

Extraction notes: for an engines range, the declared minimum is the smallest major mentioned (>=20 means 20, ^18.2 means 18, 20.x means 20, and a bare * declares nothing). CI values may be scalars, inline matrix lists such as [20, 22], or YAML block lists under the key. Every Dockerfile stage is scanned, so multi-stage builds report each FROM node line. An absent CI config or Dockerfile is never an issue by itself. Pure local computation: no network, no configuration, no files read by the tool itself.

CLI

npx @reneturcios/enginedrift check --package-json package.json --ci .github/workflows/ci.yml --dockerfile Dockerfile
npx @reneturcios/enginedrift --version

The --ci and --dockerfile flags are optional. The result is printed as JSON. Exit codes: 0 when the check ran (drift is data, not an error), 1 on a runtime error (including an unreadable file or an invalid package.json), 2 on a usage error.

Related MCP server: end-of-life-mcp

MCP server

npx -y @reneturcios/enginedrift mcp

MCP client config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "enginedrift": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@reneturcios/enginedrift", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Tools

• check_engine_drift — Compare Node majors declared in package.json, CI config, and a Dockerfile, and report drift.

  • package_json (string, required) — package.json text; its engines.node range is the anchor source

  • ci_yaml (string, optional) — CI workflow YAML text; node-version values are extracted

  • dockerfile (string, optional) — Dockerfile text; FROM node image tags are extracted

Docker

docker run -i ghcr.io/cloudcorprecords/enginedrift
docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/w" ghcr.io/cloudcorprecords/enginedrift check --package-json /w/package.json --dockerfile /w/Dockerfile

Development

npm install
npm run build   # tsc -> dist/
npm test        # tsx --test test/*.test.ts (pure local, no network)
npm run dev     # run the CLI from source

License

MIT — Copyright (c) 2026 Rene Turcios