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Dry run mode lets you preview the meeting issue content the tool would generate without creating anything. It prints the rendered issue body to the console and then exits. No GitHub issues are opened, no HackMD documents are created, and no calendar requests are made.

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Running in dry run mode

node --env-file=.env create-node-meeting-artifacts.mjs tsc --dry-run
You can substitute any group shortname for tsc.

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What dry run does

When --dry-run is passed, the tool executes Steps 1–5 of the normal flow and then performs a shortened path through the agenda-fetching and rendering logic before exiting. It skips Steps 6–16 entirely — meaning no calendar lookup, no HackMD document creation, and no GitHub issue creation. Specifically, with --dry-run the tool:
  1. Loads application config — parses CLI flags and environment variables
  2. Reads meeting config from templates — loads invited_<group>, observers_<group>, and meeting_base_<group> from the templates/ directory
  3. Fetches open GitHub issues with the agenda label — queries the GitHub API for issues tagged with the group’s AGENDA_TAG
  4. Generates the meeting agenda — formats the fetched issues into a Markdown list grouped by repository
  5. Generates the full issue content — substitutes all template variables into the meeting issue template using the current date as the meeting date
  6. Prints to console and exits — outputs the rendered issue body and calls process.exit(0)
Dry run still requires a valid GITHUB_TOKEN in your environment. The tool fetches live agenda issues from GitHub even in dry run mode — it only skips the write operations.

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Sample output

Application config loaded { meetingGroup: 'tsc', dryRun: true, verbose: false, ... }

## Meeting 2026-03-25

**Time**: 2026-03-25 21:00 UTC

| Location      | Time |
| ------------- | ---- |
| UTC           | 21:00 |
| New York      | 17:00 EDT |
| San Francisco | 14:00 PDT |
| London        | 21:00 BST |
| Amsterdam     | 22:00 CEST |

...

## Agenda

### node

* Fix memory leak in streams [#12345](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/12345)
* Deprecate legacy URL API [#12346](https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/12346)

### TSC

* Vote on new TSC member [#789](https://github.com/nodejs/TSC/issues/789)

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When to use dry run

Use caseWhy dry run helps
Testing a new meeting group templateVerify template files parse correctly and variables substitute as expected before the first real run
Previewing what the issue will look likeReview formatting and agenda content before creating the issue in GitHub
Debugging template variable substitutionCheck that $AGENDA_CONTENT$, $INVITED$, and other variables are replaced with the right values
CI/CD validationConfirm the tool runs without errors in a pipeline without producing side effects
Combine --dry-run with --verbose to see additional debug output, including the raw calendar events, parsed meeting config, and fetched agenda issues:
node --env-file=.env create-node-meeting-artifacts.mjs tsc --dry-run --verbose

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