Build succeeds but generated `dist` crashes on Node 18 — `import … with { type: "json" }` requires Node 20.6 +

[firedfly2]

What happened?

1. git clone https://github.com/browserbase/mcp-server-browserbase.git
2. cd mcp-server-browserbase/browserbase
3. nvm use 18 # or any Node 18.x LTS
4. npm ci && npm run build
5. node dist/cli.js --help

The TypeScript compilation itself succeeds, but the generated JS immediately throws:

file:///…/browserbase/dist/program.js:6
import pkg from '../package.json' with { type: 'json' };
                              ^^^^
SyntaxError: Unexpected token 'with'

If I patch that to avoid the import‑assertion and rebuild, the next run crashes with:

ReferenceError: require is not defined in ES module scope

Why this happens

• tsconfig.json is configured with "module": "NodeNext" + "resolveJsonModule": true.
  TypeScript 5.x therefore emits import … with { type: "json" } into dist/.
• package.json declares "type": "module" and "engines": { "node": ">=18" }, so runtime is ESM but promises only Node ≥ 18.
• JSON‑import assertions are officially supported only from Node 20.6 onward, so Node 18 LTS cannot execute the output.

Expected behaviour

Either…

• the project advertises “requires Node 20.6+” (update package.json engines and README), or
• the build emits code that is runnable on Node 18 (e.g. change module to "CommonJS" or read package.json via fs.readFileSync).

Repro matrix

Node version	npm run build	node dist/…
18.x LTS	✅ succeeds	❌ SyntaxError (with { type: 'json' })
20.5	✅	❌ same as above
20.6 +	✅	✅ runs

Suggested fix

• Quick: bump "engines.node" in browserbase/package.json to "^20.6.0" and mention in README.
• Long‑term: if Node 18 support is desired, change build target to CommonJS or replace the JSON import with:

JSON.parse(
  require('fs').readFileSync(
    new URL('../package.json', import.meta.url),
    'utf-8'
  )
);

---

Thanks for the great project!

[Kylejeong2]

Hey @firedfly2 , thanks so much for flagging! We recently pushed a change to fix this for people on older versions of node. Would love to know if you're still experiencing this on the latest version.