Description

It's annoying to have to use multiple tools to switch between different JavaScript runtimes/engines. As there is more & more interoperability (& work to standardize APIs across these projects) developers switching between &/or using multiple engines will become the norm. Providing an end-to-end toolchain experience eliminates the need for independent runtime management tools (ex. fnm, nvm, n, nave, asdf, volta etc.).

Proposal

• implement a new use command
• use will install the defined runtime/engine into node_modules/ & have it's bins available via run/exec (globally?)
• engines gains support for devDependency references (similar to npm's dependency references in overrides)
• engines references are resolved prior to any validating/usage
• engines definitions can be overidden by publishConfig.engines during pack/publish (making it possible to delineate dev vs. dist-specific engines)
• setting --publish will update publishConfig.engines instead of engines
• support known tags/release channels beyond configured registry dist-tags (ex. node@lts ~ https://www.npmjs.com/package/@pkgjs/nv)

Key differences between install

• intended to manage devDependencies & engines specifically
• specs are respected & saved as defined

Known engines definitions/locations

• engines can contain any number of definitions but there is a subset of "known" runtimes & their corresponding releases/versions we can support/manage
• ex. all major runtimes have corresponding packages that can be downloaded via npm today:
  • node: npm:node@* https://npmjs.com/node
  • deno: npm:deno-bin@* https://www.npmjs.com/package/deno-bin
  • bun: npm:bun@* ^(official) https://www.npmjs.com/package/bun
  • npm: npm:npm@* ^(official) https://www.npmjs.com/package/npm
  • yarn: npm:yarn@<2 || npm:@yarnpkg/cli-dit@>2 ^(official) https://www.npmjs.com/package/yarn
  • pnpm: npm:pnpm@* ^(official) https://www.npmjs.com/package/pnpm
• somewhat more official, consistent, runtime release channel destinations are:
  • node: https://nodejs.org/dist/
  • deno: https://api.github.com/repos/denoland/deno/tags
  • bun: https://api.github.com/oven-sh/bun/tags

Example Usage

$ vlt use npm@latest
$ vlt use node@lts
$ vlt use node@>=20 --publish

{
  "devDependencies": {
    "npm": "npm:npm@latest",
    "node": "npm:node@lts"
  },
  "engines": {
    "npm": "$npm",
    "node": "$node"
  },
  "publishConfig": {
  	"engines": {
      "node": "npm:node@>=20"
  	}
  }
}