String replacing in large project

I have a big web project with a lot of static html files. Is there a way to manipulate these files with node.js? I mean that if I want to change tabindex on 50 files can I do some selection like 

$('input.myClass').attr('tabindex', '-1');

and apply it on all? Can I manipulate my project's files this way? Modifying, replacing strings depending on some criteria?

The only alternative I have for automating large changes is bash(for now) but I don't think it's a good idea to spend that much time to build custom scripts for css selectors.

Here is a simple script using cheerio that demonstrates how to manipulate html files. assuming the html looks like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>My Test Page</title>
</head>
    <body>
        <ul id="fruits">
            <li class="apple">Apples</li>
            <li class="orange">Orange</li>
            <li class="pear">Pear</li>
        </ul>
    </body>
</html>

The script to add tabindex would look like this:

#!/usr/bin/env node 
var fs = require('fs'),
    cheerio = require('cheerio');

fs.readFile('index.html', { encoding:'utf-8' }, function(err, data) {
    if (err) throw err;

    var $ = cheerio.load( data );

    var apple = $('.apple');

    apple.attr('tabindex', '-1');

    // now write the file out
    console.log( $.html() );
});

The modified html now looks like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>My Test Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<ul id="fruits">
    <li class="apple" tabindex="-1">Apples</li>
    <li class="orange">Orange</li>
    <li class="pear">Pear</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>