test: verify npm compatibility with releases

test/parallel/test-release-npm.js

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+'use strict';
+
+const common = require('../common');
+const assert = require('assert');
+const child_process = require('child_process');
+const path = require('path');
+
+const releaseReg = /^v\d+\.\d+\.\d+$/;
+
+if (!releaseReg.test(process.version)) {
+  common.skip('This test is only for release builds');
+}
+
+{
+  // Verify that npm does not print out a warning when executed
+
+  const npmCli = path.join(__dirname, '../../deps/npm/bin/npm-cli.js');
+  const npmExec = child_process.spawnSync(process.execPath, [npmCli]);
+  assert.strictEqual(npmExec.status, 1);
+
+  const stderr = npmExec.stderr.toString();
+  assert.strictEqual(stderr.length, 0, 'npm is not ready for this release ' +
+                     'and is going to print warnings to users:\n' + stderr);
+}