... in the previous chapters...

Apple shipped container 1.0 — an open-source, native CLI that runs Linux containers on macOS by giving each one its own lightweight micro-VM. It speaks OCI images and has a Docker-like CLI. Here's a real Node.js app built and run on it, the networking model, x86 images via Rosetta, and the gotchas — all verified on container 1.0.0 on an Apple-silicon Mac.

Which base image should a Node.js app use? The choice swings your image from ~1.8 GB down to ~210 MB and changes how you debug and secure it. Here are the real sizes for the same app on node:26, node:26-slim, node:26-alpine, and distroless — all measured with Docker — plus the tradeoffs that actually matter.

Node.js can bundle your script and the runtime into one executable file — a Single Executable Application — so users run your CLI without installing Node at all. Here's the full build, an embedded asset, and proof the binary runs on a machine with no Node installed. Verified on real Docker images.

You no longer need Jest, Mocha, or Vitest to test a Node.js project. node:test ships a complete runner — suites, hooks, mocking, filtering, watch mode, and coverage — that you run with node --test. No dependencies, no config. Every command and its output here is from a real node:26-slim Docker image.

Need a database for a script, CLI, or small service? Node.js ships node:sqlite — a synchronous SQLite driver built right in. No better-sqlite3, no node-gyp, no native compile, no npm install. Here's the full API — prepared statements, transactions, and user-defined functions — verified on a real node:26-slim image.

Node.js runs .ts files directly — no ts-node, no tsx, no build step. But the details differ between Node 22, 24, and 26: what's flagged, what's stable, and one feature that was removed in Node 26. Every example here was run on real node:22-slim, node:24-slim, and node:26-slim Docker images.

Node.js has quietly absorbed the jobs that used to need dependencies: a test runner, a file watcher, a .env loader, native TypeScript, fetch, terminal colors, deep clone, even SQLite. Here's what you can drop on Node.js 26 — every example verified on a real node:26 Docker image.

A batch of genuinely useful JavaScript additions is now unflagged in Node.js 26: Set operations (union, intersection, difference), lazy iterator helpers, RegExp.escape, Promise.try, Array.fromAsync, and Float16Array. Here's each one with real, verified output.

JavaScript's broken Date object finally has a replacement. Temporal — Stage 4 in ES2026 and enabled by default in Node.js 26 — brings immutable date/time types, real time-zone support, and sane arithmetic. Here's how to use it, with examples and the polyfill for older environments.

The new HTTP QUERY method (RFC 10008, 2026) gives you the safe, idempotent, cacheable semantics of GET with the request body of POST — ideal for large or structured read operations. Here's its status, browser and server support, and a form + fetch + Node example you can actually test.

Tailwind CSS v4 is CSS-first: no tailwind.config.js, no @tailwind directives, and automatic content detection. Here's how to set it up with Vite, PostCSS, or the CLI, customize your theme with @theme, and migrate from v3.

Turn any web page into a PDF or a full-page PNG screenshot with Puppeteer and headless Chrome — natively, in just a few lines, with none of the Xvfb, DPI, or screenshot-stitching workarounds the old Nightmare approach required.