Serenity/JS should automatically propose updates when they're available

[jan-molak]

What's the problem you're trying to solve?

Most teams don't use tools like Renovate or Dependabot to help them keep up with dependency updates. Since Serenity/JS releases new patches and features at least several times a month, numerous community members have asked for some utility to help them discover when a new release is available.

How would you like to solve it?

Create a new Serenity/JS module that:

• discovers the versions of project-local Serenity/JS dependencies
• checks if there are updates available
• informs the developer on how to get them

Any communication with the developer should have the form of a polite reminder to install the patches and should not install anything by itself or mutate the execution environment in any way. The reminder could be emitted via ConsoleReporter.

Acceptance criteria:

• The check should be fast and limited to only necessary HTTP requests; we don't want an HTTP request to npmjs.com per module as that would be 14 requests already
• The check should be optional; many teams have already automated their dependency updates or run Serenity/JS in air-gapped environments that don't allow contacting the public Internet. They should be able to disable the mechanism entirely, or under specific conditions (e.g. don't run on CI, but run locally).
• The check should be allowed to fail; if GitHub, NPM, or Serenity/JS websites are down, we should notify the developer that a check is not possible and move on to make sure we never stop or slow down their work
• The check might involve "other modules of interest", such as Playwright, WebdriverIO, Mocha, Cucumber, or Jasmine to help developers stay up to date with Serenity/JS-related tools
• The check could be implemented as a StageCrewMember that runs when the tests run, or as a CLI tool that developers add to their postintall script in package.json. We might also want to have both options to allow for a wider range of usage scenarios.
• The check should be compliant with the Serenity/JS privacy policy

Are there any alternatives?

The alternative is for developers to follow Serenity/JS releases on GitHub, LinkedIn, or the Serenity/JS websites and apply updates manually. We could have a more convenient way to do it, though.

How can we make it happen?

• work on this myself (with Serenity/JS team guidance)
• hire the Serenity/JS team to build it for me
• add it to the Serenity/JS backlog and wait for a volunteer