Use Case

As a... Native addon user
I want... to obtain prebuilds for common platforms
So that... I can use the supporting packages without needing build tools

The package is officially deprecated and there's a known breakage starting in npm@12

• https://github.com/prebuild/prebuild-install/issues/216#issuecomment-3666500733
• https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/8153 

Affected repositories (with native binaries):

• zstd
• client-encryption
• kerberos

User Experience

• TBD: Is this enough motivation to reconsider how we ship our addons to users or will we still distribute them as a "post-install script that downloads from github" step?
  • One Alt: platform specific packages, zstd used to work this way, look at esbuild as an example
  • Another alt: a mega tar ships all prebuilds in one npm package (might not actually be that big)

Dependencies

• Popularity of NPM 12 may make this more urgent when it releases
• We should fix the build-from-source flag but keep in mind that this may also not work as it once did in older npm versions? (needs confirmation)

Risks/Unknowns

• What could go wrong while implementing this change? (e.g., performance, inadvertent behavioral changes in adjacent functionality, existing tech debt, etc)
• Is there an opportunity for better cross-driver alignment or testing in this area?
• Is there an opportunity to improve existing documentation on this subject?

Acceptance Criteria

Implementation Requirements

• TODO - The new approach needs to be decided on.

Testing Requirements

• unit test, spec test sync, etc

Documentation Requirements

• DOCSP ticket, API docs, etc

Follow Up Requirements

• Follow up with user as promised in https://github.com/mongodb-js/mongodb-client-encryption/pull/127#issuecomment-4542886393 
• if node behavior differs/will differ from other drivers, confirm with dbx devs what standard to aim for and what plan, if any, exists to reconcile the diverging behavior moving forward