Node.js plugin for asdf version manager
Install
After installing asdf, install the plugin by running:
asdf plugin add nodejs https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-nodejs.git
Use
Check asdf readme for instructions on how to install & manage versions of Node.js at a system and project level.
Behind the scenes, asdf-nodejs
utilizes node-build
to install pre-compiled binaries and compile from source if necessary. You can check its README for additional settings and some troubleshooting.
When compiling a version from source, you are going to need to install all requirements for compiling Node.js (be advised that different versions might require different configurations). That being said, node-build
does a great job at handling edge cases and compilations rarely need a deep investigation.
Configuration
node-build
already has a handful of settings, in additional to that asdf-nodejs
has a few extra configuration variables:
ASDF_NODEJS_VERBOSE_INSTALL
: Enables verbose output for downloading and building. Any value different from empty is treated as enabled.ASDF_NODEJS_FORCE_COMPILE
: Forces compilation from source instead of preferring pre-compiled binariesASDF_NODEJS_NODEBUILD_HOME
: Home for the node-build installation, defaults to$ASDF_DIR/plugins/nodejs/.node-build
, you can install it in another place or share it with your systemASDF_NODEJS_NODEBUILD
: Path to the node-build executable, defaults to$ASDF_NODEJS_NODEBUILD_HOME/bin/node-build
ASDF_NODEJS_CONCURRENCY
: How many jobs should be used in compilation. Defaults to half the computer coresNODEJS_ORG_MIRROR
: (Legacy) overrides the default mirror used for downloading the distibutions, alternative to theNODE_BUILD_MIRROR_URL
node-build env var
Integrity/signature check
In the past asdf-nodejs
checked for signatures and integrity by querying live keyservers. node-build
, on the other hand, checks integrity by precomputing checksums ahead of time and versioning them together with the instructions for building them, making the process a lot more streamlined.
.nvmrc
and .node-version
support
asdf uses a .tool-versions
file for auto-switching between software versions. To ease migration, you can have it read an existing .nvmrc
or .node-version
file to find out what version of Node.js should be used. To do this, add the following to $HOME/.asdfrc
:
legacy_version_file = yes
Running the wrapped node-build command
We provide a command for running the installed node-build
command:
asdf nodejs nodebuild --version
node-build advanced variations
node-build
has some additional variations aside from the versions listed in asdf list-all nodejs
(chakracore/graalvm branches and some others). As of now, we weakly support these variations. In the sense that they are available for install and can be used in a .tool-versions
file, but we don't list them as installation candidates nor give them full attention.
Some of them will work out of the box, and some will need a bit of investigation to get them built. We are planning in providing better support for these variations in the future.
To list all the available variations run:
asdf nodejs nodebuild --definitions
Note that this command only lists the current node-build
definitions. You might want to update the local node-build
repository before listing them.
Manually updating node-build definitions
Every new node version needs to have a definition file in the node-build
repository. asdf-nodejs
already tries to update node-build
on every new version installation, but if you want to update node-build
manually for some reason we provide a command just for that:
asdf nodejs update-nodebuild
Default npm Packages
asdf-nodejs
can automatically install a set of default set of npm package right after installing a Node.js version. To enable this feature, provide a $HOME/.default-npm-packages
file that lists one package per line, for example:
lodash
request
express
You can specify a non-default location of this file by setting a ASDF_NPM_DEFAULT_PACKAGES_FILE
variable.