chore: Update installation requirements in CONTRIBUTING.md

[Crustum7]

• Closes Can't build v13.0.0+ from source without g++ and make #27846

Additional details

CMake is needed to set up the developer environment

Steps to test

na

How has the user experience changed?

na

PR Tasks

• [na] Have tests been added/updated?
• [na] Has a PR for user-facing changes been opened in cypress-documentation?
• [na] Have API changes been updated in the type definitions?

[cypress-app-bot]

• Create a Draft Pull Request if your PR is not ready for review. Mark the PR as Ready for Review when you're ready for a Cypress team member to review the PR.

[MikeMcC399]

@Crustum7

• Thanks for picking this up!
• I think you need to change the commit title in 73d4058 which says "Solves issue-27846" and this is not a semantic commit message. I would suggest: docs: update installation requirements in contributing.md instead.

[alexsch01]

instead of on Unix, it should be on Debian-based systems

[alexsch01]

@Crustum7 installing just cmake didn't fix the build issue

[MikeMcC399]

@alexsch01

installing just cmake didn't fix the build issue

Is there something missing if you followed the prerequisites in https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#on-unix?

[Crustum7]

@alexsch01 well as @MikeMcC399 mentioned here, make and build-essential are indirectly required through node-gyp so they should not need to be included here as well. I can change to "on Debian-based systems" though if you want

[alexsch01]

I made a PR that supersedes this one: #27879
g++ and make were not required to build Cypress before v13.0.0

[MikeMcC399]

If cmake is not installed then yarn install fails at:

1. rebuild of cpu-features@0.0.2
2. electron-rebuild -o better-sqlite3

so I support adding it explicitly to the list of requirements to build Cypress. My understanding of reading https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#on-unix is that it is not specifically mentioned there. If I have misinterpreted that, then I'd be grateful for an explanation.

• Edit: the electron-rebuild deprecations are a separate issue: electron-rebuild better-sqlite3 deprecation warnings starting with v13.2.0 #27891

---

https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#on-unix

On Unix

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

[MikeMcC399]

LGTM

[MikeMcC399]

@alexsch01

I made a PR that supersedes this one: #27879 g++ and make were not required to build Cypress before v13.0.0

I believe that is unnecessary, since CONTRIBUTING > Requirements refers to

python (since we use node-gyp. See their repo for Python version requirements.) which refers to

• https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp and this lists make and gcc

These generic instructions are admittedly difficult to follow. Perhaps there should be a cook-book with some explicit instructions for operating systems commonly used to build Cypress, like for instance Ubuntu 22.04 LTS?

I would in any case support merging this PR to simply add cmake to the list of requirements and then separately work on the issue about making the instructions easier to understand and use.

[alexsch01]

cmake isn't required for the yarn command to successfuly install Cypress

g++ and make are required on Linux

---

A proper C/C++ compiler toolchain, like GCC

GCC is not enough for Cypress to build successfully

---

build-essential package on debian solved my building issues because it includes g++ and make

[MikeMcC399]

@alexsch01

Thanks for your research and explanation. I will check again on a clean install of Ubuntu if build-essential is enough. I was getting errors without cmake, however I may have overlooked something. According to https://packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/build-essential it contains g++, gcc and make so perhaps this would be a good package to explicitly recommend for Debian-based systems?

[alexsch01]

@alexsch01

Thanks for your research and explanation. I will check again on a clean install of Ubuntu if build-essential is enough. I was getting errors without cmake, however I may have overlooked something. According to https://packages.ubuntu.com/jammy/build-essential it contains g++, gcc and make so perhaps this would be a good package to explicitly recommend for Debian-based systems?

My PR has g++ (this includes gcc) and make required

[MikeMcC399]

The requirements for running node-gyp are supposed to be covered in the requirements section referring to python. In practice the instructions are too vague and too open to interpretation, apart from the explicit mention of make, so I suggest to make the text look like this, with an note especially for Debian-based systems (including Ubuntu):

• python (since we use node-gyp. See their repo for Python version requirements.)
  • Note for Debian-based systems: python is pre-installed.
    sudo apt install g++ make cmake meets the additional requirements to run node-gyp in the context of building Cypress from source.

[MikeMcC399]

Thank you very much @Crustum7! 👍🏻

I'm confident that this is correct advice now and should help anybody trying to set up a new Debian-based system to build Cypress from source.

It would certainly have helped me when I first did it last year and was struggling with trial-and-error methods!

[MikeMcC399]

@Crustum7

Just for future reference if you create any new PR, there are some instructions in https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md#pull-requests about naming the branch. It's not good practice to make edits in the default develop branch, even if you are working from a fork. Unfortunately you can't change the source branch name of an open PR, you can only change the target branch name, so don't worry about this for the moment. Just leave it as it is!

[alexsch01]

Actually nope, make should still be in the install command

Sorry for the confusion

[MikeMcC399]

I've hidden the latest suggestion. I'm not an apt expert. I have just been checking that the instructions work on Ubuntu.

[MikeMcC399]

Just as a sanity cross-check, the following instructions will build Cypress on a freshly-installed Ubuntu 22.04 system with no other prerequisites installed:

sudo apt install git g++ cmake make curl
curl -L https://bit.ly/n-install | bash
 . ~/.bashrc
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/cypress-io/cypress
cd cypress
n auto
npm install yarn -g
yarn