Node Version Manager (NVM)

nvm is a version manager for node.js, designed to be installed per-user, and invoked per-shell. nvm works on any POSIX-compliant shell (sh, dash, ksh, zsh, bash), in particular on these platforms: unix, macOS, and windows WSL.

Installation

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash
# or
wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.38.0/install.sh | bash

Add snippet below to the correct profile file (~/.zshrc, ~/.bash_profile, ~/.profile, or ~/.bashrc).

export NVM_DIR="$([ -z "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME-}" ] && printf %s "${HOME}/.nvm" || printf %s "${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}/nvm")"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm

Activate the NVM manually

source ~/.zshrc

Usage

To download, compile, and install the latest release of node, do this:

nvm install node # "node" is an alias for the latest version

Switch the version of Node.js used by default when starting a new shell.

nvm alias default {VERSION}

Get the latest supported npm version on the current node version:

nvm install-latest-npm

To install a specific version of node:

nvm install 6.14.4 # or 10.10.0, 8.9.1, etc

The first version installed becomes the default. New shells will start with the default version of node (e.g., nvm alias default).

You can list available versions using ls-remote:

nvm ls-remote

And then in any new shell just use the installed version:

nvm use node

Or you can just run it:

nvm run node --version