Align CI and docs to Node 20 and make frontend build/test steps consistent

[ChrisAdamsdevelopment]

Motivation

• Ensure CI, security scans, and deploy docs validate the same Node baseline used in production to catch native-module issues (for example better-sqlite3) early.
• Make the frontend build/test script flow coherent so devDependencies (Vitest/jsdom/TypeScript/Vite) are present when running unit tests and vite build in CI.
• Update docs to unambiguously state Node 20 support and avoid accidental use of Node 24 or stale Node 18 references that mask build failures.

Description

• Updated security workflow to use the repo Node pin via node-version-file: ".nvmrc" so scans run on Node 20.20.2 instead of a hardcoded Node 18. (.github/workflows/security.yml).
• Aligned CI frontend job to use .nvmrc comment and changed the build step to npm run build so the same npm script (tsc && vite build) runs in CI as locally. (.github/workflows/ci.yml).
• Clarified runtime documentation and README to state Node 20.x (recommended 20.20.2) and that Docker now uses Node 20 base, removing stale Node 18 wording. (README.md).
• Updated Render/Hyperlift deploy checklist guidance to require CI workflows to follow .nvmrc so native modules are validated on the production Node baseline. (spectracleanse-engineering/docs/render-deploy-checklist.md).
• No changes to application logic, metadata handling, auth, billing, CORS, or processing behavior were made.

Files changed: .github/workflows/security.yml, .github/workflows/ci.yml, README.md, spectracleanse-engineering/docs/render-deploy-checklist.md.

Testing

• Verified Node and npm versions: node -v -> v20.20.2 and npm -v -> 11.4.2 (used for successful verification). (Passed)
• npm ci under Node v24.15.0 failed during native build of better-sqlite3 as expected, confirming Node 24 is unsupported. (Failed as expected)
• Under v20.20.2 ran npm ci (with dev deps), which completed successfully. (Passed)
• Ran unit tests with npm run test:run (vitest run) under Node 20.20.2 and all tests passed: 3 test files, 7 tests (Passed).
• Built the frontend with VITE_API_URL=https://spectracleanse.com npm run build (executes tsc && vite build) under Node 20.20.2 and build completed with dist/ artifacts present. (Passed)
• Performed server syntax checks with node --check server.js and node --check server/processor.js under Node 20.20.2 and both passed. (Passed)
• Performed a startup smoke check by exporting minimal CI env vars and running node server.js then curl -sf http://localhost:3001/api/health and received {"status":"ok"}. (Passed)

Notes / remaining risk: If a deploy platform runs npm ci --omit=dev for the frontend build step, devDependencies (Vitest/jsdom/TypeScript/Vite) would be missing and the build/tests would fail; ensure build environments install devDependencies (CI uses full npm ci for build jobs).

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Codex Task

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
spectracleanseai	Ready	Preview, Comment, Open in v0	May 24, 2026 11:49pm

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