Developer Pro Tips

Node

1. Use nvm to manage Node versions

If you work on multiple projects with different Node versions, nvm is a must-have. It helps manage the Node versions on the machine. This is especially useful for teams, working on projects using different Node versions.

Auto-switching Node versions

If you’re using zsh, you can add the following to your .zshrc to automatically switch Node versions when you cd into a directory with a .nvmrc file.

# Automatic `nvm install / use` when .nvmrc detected in cwd
# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23556330/run-nvm-use-automatically-every-time-theres-a-nvmrc-file-on-the-directory
autoload -U add-zsh-hook
load-nvmrc() {
  local node_version="$(nvm version)"
  local nvmrc_path="$(nvm_find_nvmrc)"
 
  if [ -n "$nvmrc_path" ]; then
    local nvmrc_node_version=$(nvm version "$(cat "${nvmrc_path}")")
 
    if [ "$nvmrc_node_version" = "N/A" ]; then
      nvm install
    elif [ "$nvmrc_node_version" != "$node_version" ]; then
      nvm use
    fi
  elif [ "$node_version" != "$(nvm version default)" ]; then
    echo "Reverting to nvm default version"
    nvm use default
  fi
}
add-zsh-hook chpwd load-nvmrc
load-nvmrc

2. Use corepack

Corepack is an experimental tool to help with managing versions of your package managers. It exposes binary proxies for each supported package manager that, when called, will identify whatever package manager is configured for the current project, download it if needed, and finally run it.