On 18th November 2019, AWS published they are now supporting Node.js 12.x runtime in AWS Lambda. However, AWS SAM CLI does support this runtime for building purposes.
Tested on AWS SAM CLI version:
⇒ sam --version
SAM CLI, version 0.31.1
At this moment, the supported runtimes are:
Python 2.7, 3.6, 3.7 using PIP
Nodejs 10.x, 8.10, 6.10 using NPM
Ruby 2.5 using Bundler
Java 8 using Gradle
Dotnetcore2.0 and 2.1 using Dotnet CLI (without --use-container flag)
Include the support to Node.js 12.x on the build command.
Support Node.js 12.x Release Post: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/node-js-12-x-runtime-now-available-in-aws-lambda/
I ran into similar issues today when attempting to test upgrading functions locally and the start-api and invoke commands fail for similar reasons. Also tested on version 0.31.1. I get the following error message:
ValueError: Unsupported Lambda runtime nodejs12.x
It is in flight. Hang in there guys :) #1549
Hot off the press. v0.32.0 with Nodejs12.x support.
Closing
I am on version 0.38.0 and it does not show support for version 12. Am I looking at the wrong place?

@40x Thanks for bringing this up. Looks like we forgot to update the help text but Node12 is supported and released.
Most helpful comment
Hot off the press. v0.32.0 with Nodejs12.x support.
Closing