Self-hosted runner is not finding nvm or Node which are already installed in Linux

I have a Linux server at my home that has a GitHub Actions runner with the following code:

name: Build and Deploy UI - DEV

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    branches: [ "dev" ]
    paths:
      - 'UI/**'
  pull_request:
    branches: [ "dev" ]
    paths:
      - 'UI/**'

jobs:
  build_and_deploy:
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/dev'
    runs-on: self-hosted
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v4      

    - name: Install Dependencies
      run: |        
        nvm list
        node -v
        npm -v

It is giving me this error

/github/actions-runner/project/_work/_temp/dc7e7354-9aa9-4676-8b50-883e4f150b34.sh:
line 2: nvm: command not found Error: Process completed with exit code 127.

I have tried using nvm and node installed as root and non-root (user running GitHub Actions) but nothing changes in the error message.

Can GitHub Actions use Node.js installed in the server? I don't want to set up Node.js and nvm every time I commit my code to save deployment time.

Solution

The issue was that the already installed Node and NVM were not available in the new terminal, which was by default shell (/bin/sh) for the non-root user. You can source the NVM to resolve this issue.

In my case, to solve this I performed the following operations.

Changed the default shell to bash (/bin/bash) for non-root user
```
sudo chsh -s /bin/bash non-root
```

Added .profile (actually copied code from /root path)

if [ "$BASH" ]; then
   if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
      . ~/.bashrc
   fi
fi

mesg n 2> /dev/null || true

Added .bashrc files

export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"  # This loads nvm bash_completi>

Added BASH_ENV: ~/.profile in action runner

name: Build and Deploy UI - Prod

on:
  workflow_dispatch:
  push:
    branches: [ "main" ]
    paths:
      - 'UI/**'
  pull_request:
    branches: [ "main" ]
    paths:
      - 'UI/**'

env:
  BASH_ENV: ~/.profile

jobs:
  build_and_deploy:
    if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
    runs-on: self-hosted
    steps:
    - name: Checkout
      uses: actions/checkout@v4      

    - name: Install Dependencies
      run: |
        cd ./path-to-project-root
        npm ci