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Python 3.9 EOL accepted for build in main branch #60919
Description
Version
main branch f9f343f
Platform
Generic Unix
Subsystem
build
Expected behavior
The Node.js main branch and future release lines should not accept Python version 3.9 in the configure shell script.
BUILDING.md > Unix prerequisites document section contains the requirement text:
- A supported version of Python
* For test coverage, your Python installation must include pip.
Python released versions, listed as supported by the Python organization, range from Python 3.14 down to Python 3.10.
Python version 3.9 reached end of life transition recently and is therefore no longer supported:
| Python version | End of life |
|---|---|
| 3.9 | 2025-10-31 |
Instead
| Branch | Shell script | Allows Python |
|---|---|---|
| main | configure | >=3.9 <=3.14 |
Related
Follows on from #60918
Any change should not be backported to release lines to avoid breaking compatibility of existing releases.
Activity
marco-ippolito commentedon Dec 1, 2025
It's a semver major change but lets do it, PR welcome
MikeMcC399 commentedon Dec 2, 2025
@marco-ippolito
Judging by the difficulties encountered by #55239, that dropped support for Python 3.8, it may be wise for somebody with previous experience to be submitting the related PR to drop support for Python 3.9.
MikeMcC399 commentedon Dec 26, 2025
@marco-ippolito
Since nobody else has submitted a PR to resolve this issue, I've now submitted #61177. I can't really judge if it is going to cause similar issues to the previous #55239 and the only way to tell is to let it run through CI I guess.
Edit: like last year's PR, it is failing on some systems, so these build systems will need looking at and they will probably need Python version updates.
MikeMcC399 commentedon Jan 6, 2026
build: drop support for Python 3.9