Question
I’m trying to setup io.Connect via the Seed Project CLI and npm run setup fails with Network error: fetch failed and Error: self-signed certificate in certificate chain.
Answer
A common issue we’ve seen is that the CLI cannot establish a trusted HTTPS connection to GitHub. HTTPS traffic can be intercepted by a corporate proxy, which re-signs certificates with an internal CA that Node.js does not trust by default.
Here are some steps that you can use to unblock:
1) Upgrade Node.js to use system CA (preferred)
Use Node.js 23+ (ideally 24+), which uses the OS trust store (e.g. macOS Keychain).
If your corporate root certificate is trusted by the OS, this often fixes GitHub access for the CLI without extra config.
If upgrading doesn’t fix it automatically , enable Node’s --use-system-ca (Node 24+)
This tells Node to use the system CA. This can be done for a specific run only or globally via:
echo 'export NODE_OPTIONS="--use-system-ca $NODE_OPTIONS"' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc
Then re-run:
npm run setup
2. Temporarily disable Node.js TLS certificate validation.
Run the setup with certificate checks disabled:
NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0 npm run setup
This allows Node.js HTTPS requests (e.g. to GitHub) to proceed despite the proxy’s certificate.
NPM
If you face the issue that initial component downloads work, but the process stops when npm starts installing dependencies, this is because npm uses its own SSL policy and doesn’t automatically trust the certificates the proxy injects (despite the Node.js setting). To allow npm to continue, set:
npm config set strict-ssl false
If you have issues installing certain components or dependencies because of a proxy in front of the npm registry, you can try running the install manually inside the app (e.g. for Launchpad):
cd apps/launchpad
npm install
Bonus
In older versions (0.53) we’ve seen Network error: fetch failed because of a corporate proxy when checking the CLI log. Make sure to use the latest version of the Seed Project.
If you still face issues, please open a support ticket and attach your log files so we can help troubleshoot.