diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 9eaf68abc70090b036a4b0a0860b380d4204f30f..92041e6b66b1831b12d8302302c5639c766e8109 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-image: node:18.0.0-buster
+image: python:3.9-buster
 
 stages:
   - test
@@ -10,6 +10,12 @@ variables:
   API_ROOT_FILE: ./src/aura_engine_api/rest/swagger/swagger.yaml
   BUNDLED_JSON_FILE: ./public/api.json
 
+.install_requirements_node: &install_requirements_node
+  - apt-get --quiet update
+  - apt-get --quiet --yes install nodejs npm
+  - nodejs -v
+  - npm i -g npm@latest
+
 .release-rules: &release-rules
   # rule to run job on a tag-reference which has the form number.number.number (semantic versioning)
   # or number.number.number-text (semantic versioning + release-name)
@@ -41,8 +47,7 @@ check_style:
 bundle_and_test:
   stage: bundle
   before_script:
-    - apt-get --quiet update
-    - apt-get --quiet --yes install nodejs
+    - *install_requirements_node
     - npm install -g @apidevtools/swagger-cli
   script:
     - mkdir public
@@ -59,8 +64,7 @@ bundle_and_test:
 deploy_spec:
   stage: deploy
   before_script:
-    - apt-get --quiet update
-    - apt-get --quiet --yes install nodejs
+    - *install_requirements_node
     - npm install swagger-ui-dist@3.22.1
   script:
     - cp -rp node_modules/swagger-ui-dist/* ./public