Configure global Node defaults

The Node.js distribution can be supplied in three possible ways:

build.gradle

nodejs {
    executableByVersion('7.10.0') (1)
}

nodejs {
    executableByPath('/path/to/node') (2)
}

nodejs {
    executableBySearchPath('node') (3)
}

1	Supply a version and Gradle will take care of downloading the distribution and caching it. It will then use the cached version for running `node`. This is the preferred way of running Node.js with Gradle as it offers better control over reproducible builds.
2	Supply a path to the `node` executable. This works for people that have Node.js installed in standard locations.
3	Tell Gradle to look for `node` (or `node.exe`) in the system search path.

If no executable is configured, then Gradle will attempt to download the version specified in NodeJSExtension.NODEJS_DEFAULT. If Gradle runs on a non-supported platform this will fail.

Using nodeexec

It is possible to run node directly from Gradle using the nodeexec project execution extension. It operates in a similar fashion to Gradle’s Exec task, but it has its own node nuances, which the user needs to set up correctly.

result = nodejs.exec(FORWARD_AND_CAPTURE, FORWARD) {
    script {
        path = 'node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js' (1)
        args '--help' (2)
    }
    entrypoint {
        workingDir(npm.homeDirectory) (3)
        executable = nodejs.executable.get() (4)
    }
}

1	Specify the name of the script. It can be absolute of relative to the working directory.
2	Specify any arguments that will be passed to the script.
3	Set the working directory for the execution. If this is something installed via NPM, then using the location of the NPM homedirectory from the `npm` extension will simplify life.
4	Specify the location of the `node` executable. There are various ways of doing this, but an easy way is to ask the `node` extension to resolve it.

Consult the NodeJSExecSpec API documentation for full details of all settings.