Node Version Manager

Table of Contents
- Installation and Update
- Usage
Installation and Update
Install & Update script
To install or update nvm, you should run the install script. To do that, you may either download and run the script manually, or use the following cURL or Wget command:
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.2/install.sh | bash
wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.2/install.sh | bash
Running either of the above commands downloads a script and runs it. The script clones the nvm repository to ~/.nvm
, and adds the source lines from the snippet below to your profile (~/.bash_profile
, ~/.zshrc
, ~/.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
Note: If the environment variable $XDG_CONFIG_HOME
is present, it will place the nvm
files there.
Note: You can add --no-use
to the end of the above script (...nvm.sh --no-use
) to postpone using nvm
until you manually use
it.
You can customize the install source, directory, profile, and version using the NVM_SOURCE
, NVM_DIR
, PROFILE
, and NODE_VERSION
variables.
Eg: curl ... | NVM_DIR="path/to/nvm"
. Ensure that the NVM_DIR
does not contain a trailing slash.
NB. The installer can use git
, curl
, or wget
to download nvm
, whatever is available.
Note: On Linux, after running the install script, if you get nvm: command not found
or see no feedback from your terminal after you type command -v nvm
, simply close your current terminal, open a new terminal, and try verifying again.
Note: Since OS X 10.9, /usr/bin/git
has been preset by Xcode command line tools, which means we can't properly detect if Git is installed or not. You need to manually install the Xcode command line tools before running the install script, otherwise, it'll fail. (see #1782)
Note: On OS X, if you get nvm: command not found
after running the install script, one of the following might be the reason:
- Your system may not have a
.bash_profile
file where the command is set up. Create one withtouch ~/.bash_profile
and run the install script again - You might need to restart your terminal instance. Try opening a new tab/window in your terminal and retry.
If the above doesn't fix the problem, you may try the following:
- Open your
.bash_profile
(or~/.zshrc
,~/.profile
, or~/.bashrc
) and add the following line of code:source ~/<your_profile_file>
. E.g.source ~/.bashrc
orsource ~/.zshrc
. - If the above don't work, try adding the snippet from the install section that finds the correct nvm directory and loads nvm, to your profile (
~/.bash_profile
,~/.zshrc
,~/.profile
, or~/.bashrc
).
- For more information about this issue and possible workarounds, please refer here
Ansible
You can use a task:
- name: nvm
shell: >
curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.35.2/install.sh | bash
args:
creates: "{{ ansible_env.HOME }}/.nvm/nvm.sh"
Verify installation
To verify that nvm has been installed, do:
command -v nvm
which should output nvm
if the installation was successful. Please note that which nvm
will not work, since nvm
is a sourced shell function, not an executable binary.
Important Notes
If you're running a system without prepackaged binary available, which means you're going to install nodejs or io.js from its source code, you need to make sure your system has a C++ compiler. For OS X, Xcode will work, for Debian/Ubuntu based GNU/Linux, the build-essential
and libssl-dev
packages work.
Note: nvm
does not support Windows (see #284), but may work in WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) depending on the version of WSL. For Windows, two alternatives exist, which are neither supported nor developed by us:
Note: nvm
does not support Fish either (see #303). Alternatives exist, which are neither supported nor developed by us:
- bass allows you to use utilities written for Bash in fish shell
- fast-nvm-fish only works with version numbers (not aliases) but doesn't significantly slow your shell startup
- plugin-nvm plugin for Oh My Fish, which makes nvm and its completions available in fish shell
- fnm - fisherman-based version manager for fish
- fish-nvm - Wrapper around nvm for fish, delays sourcing nvm until it's actually used.
Note: We still have some problems with FreeBSD, because there is no official pre-built binary for FreeBSD, and building from source may need patches; see the issue ticket:
Note: On OS X, if you do not have Xcode installed and you do not wish to download the ~4.3GB file, you can install the Command Line Tools
. You can check out this blog post on how to just that:
Note: On OS X, if you have/had a "system" node installed and want to install modules globally, keep in mind that:
- When using
nvm
you do not needsudo
to globally install a module withnpm -g
, so instead of doingsudo npm install -g grunt
, do insteadnpm install -g grunt
- If you have an
~/.npmrc
file, make sure it does not contain anyprefix
settings (which is not compatible withnvm
) - You can (but should not?) keep your previous "system" node install, but
nvm
will only be available to your user account (the one used to install nvm). This might cause version mismatches, as other users will be using/usr/local/lib/node_modules/*
VS your user account using~/.nvm/versions/node/vX.X.X/lib/node_modules/*
Homebrew installation is not supported. If you have issues with homebrew-installed nvm
, please brew uninstall
it, and install it using the instructions below, before filing an issue.
Note: If you're using zsh
you can easily install nvm
as a zsh plugin. Install zsh-nvm
and run nvm upgrade
to upgrade.
Note: Git versions before v1.7 may face a problem of cloning nvm
source from GitHub via https protocol, and there is also different behavior of git before v1.6, and git prior to v1.17.10 can not clone tags, so the minimum required git version is v1.7.10. If you are interested in the problem we mentioned here, please refer to GitHub's HTTPS cloning errors article.
Git install
If you have git
installed (requires git v1.7.10+):
- clone this repo in the root of your user profile
cd ~/
from anywhere thengit clone https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm.git .nvm
cd ~/.nvm
and check out the latest version withgit checkout v0.35.2
- activate
nvm
by sourcing it from your shell:. nvm.sh
Now add these lines to your ~/.bashrc
, ~/.profile
, or ~/.zshrc
file to have it automatically sourced upon login:
(you may have to add to more than one of the above files)
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" # This loads nvm bash_completion
Manual Install
For a fully manual install, execute the following lines to first clone the nvm
repository into $HOME/.nvm
, and then load nvm
:
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm" && (
git clone https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm.git "$NVM_DIR"
cd "$NVM_DIR"
git checkout `git describe --abbrev=0 --tags --match "v[0-9]*" $(git rev-list --tags --max-count=1)`
) && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
Now add these lines to your ~/.bashrc
, ~/.profile
, or ~/.zshrc
file to have it automatically sourced upon login:
(you may have to add to more than one of the above files)
export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" # This loads nvm
Manual upgrade
For manual upgrade with git
(requires git v1.7.10+):
- change to the
$NVM_DIR
- pull down the latest changes
- check out the latest version
- activate the new version
(
cd "$NVM_DIR"
git fetch --tags origin
git checkout `git describe --abbrev=0 --tags --match "v[0-9]*" $(git rev-list --tags --max-count=1)`
) && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"
Usage
To download, compile, and install the latest release of node, do this:
nvm install node # "node" is an alias for the latest version
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
Or, you can run any arbitrary command in a subshell with the desired version of node:
nvm exec 4.2 node --version
You can also get the path to the executable to where it was installed:
nvm which 5.0
In place of a version pointer like "0.10" or "5.0" or "4.2.1", you can use the following special default aliases with nvm install
, nvm use
, nvm run
, nvm exec
, nvm which
, etc:
node
: this installs the latest version ofnode
iojs
: this installs the latest version ofio.js
stable
: this alias is deprecated, and only truly applies tonode
v0.12
and earlier. Currently, this is an alias fornode
.unstable
: this alias points tonode
v0.11
- the last "unstable" node release, since post-1.0, all node versions are stable. (in SemVer, versions communicate breakage, not stability).
Long-term support
Node has a schedule for long-term support (LTS) You can reference LTS versions in aliases and .nvmrc
files with the notation lts/*
for the latest LTS, and lts/argon
for LTS releases from the "argon" line, for example. In addition, the following commands support LTS arguments:
nvm install --lts
/nvm install --lts=argon
/nvm install 'lts/*'
/nvm install lts/argon
nvm uninstall --lts
/nvm uninstall --lts=argon
/nvm uninstall 'lts/*'
/nvm uninstall lts/argon
nvm use --lts
/nvm use --lts=argon
/nvm use 'lts/*'
/nvm use lts/argon
nvm exec --lts
/nvm exec --lts=argon
/nvm exec 'lts/*'
/nvm exec lts/argon
nvm run --lts
/nvm run --lts=argon
/nvm run 'lts/*'
/nvm run lts/argon
nvm ls-remote --lts
/nvm ls-remote --lts=argon
nvm ls-remote 'lts/*'
/nvm ls-remote lts/argon
nvm version-remote --lts
/nvm version-remote --lts=argon
/nvm version-remote 'lts/*'
/nvm version-remote lts/argon
Any time your local copy of nvm
connects to https://nodejs.org, it will re-create the appropriate local aliases for all available LTS lines. These aliases (stored under $NVM_DIR/alias/lts
), are managed by nvm
, and you should not modify, remove, or create these files - expect your changes to be undone, and expect meddling with these files to cause bugs that will likely not be supported.
Migrating global packages while installing
If you want to install a new version of Node.js and migrate npm packages from a previous version:
nvm install node --reinstall-packages-from=node
This will first use "nvm version node" to identify the current version you're migrating packages from. Then it resolves the new version to install from the remote server and installs it. Lastly, it runs "nvm reinstall-packages" to reinstall the npm packages from your prior version of Node to the new one.
You can also install and migrate npm packages from specific versions of Node like this:
nvm install 6 --reinstall-packages-from=5
nvm install v4.2 --reinstall-packages-from=iojs
Note that reinstalling packages explicitly does not update the npm version — this is to ensure that npm isn't accidentally upgraded to a broken version for the new node version.
To update npm at the same time add the --latest-npm
flag, like this:
nvm install lts/* --reinstall-packages-from=default --latest-npm
or, you can at any time run the following command to get the latest supported npm version on the current node version:
nvm install-latest-npm
If you've already gotten an error to the effect of "npm does not support Node.js", you'll need to (1) revert to a previous node version (nvm ls
& nvm use <your latest _working_ version from the ls>
, (2) delete the newly created node version (nvm uninstall <your _broken_ version of node from the ls>
), then (3) rerun your nvm install
with the --latest-npm
flag.
Default global packages from file while installing
If you have a list of default packages you want installed every time you install a new version, we support that too -- just add the package names, one per line, to the file $NVM_DIR/default-packages
. You can add anything npm would accept as a package argument on the command line.
# $NVM_DIR/default-packages
rimraf
object-inspect@1.0.2
stevemao/left-pad
io.js
If you want to install io.js:
nvm install iojs
If you want to install a new version of io.js and migrate npm packages from a previous version:
nvm install iojs --reinstall-packages-from=iojs
The same guidelines mentioned for migrating npm packages in node are applicable to io.js.
System version of node
If you want to use the system-installed version of node, you can use the special default alias "system":
nvm use system
nvm run system --version
Listing versions
If you want to see what versions are installed:
nvm ls
If you want to see what versions are available to install:
nvm ls-remote
Suppressing colorized output
nvm ls
, nvm ls-remote
and nvm alias
usually produce colorized output. You can disable colors with the --no-colors
option (or by setting the environment variable TERM=dumb
):
nvm ls --no-colors
TERM=dumb nvm ls
To restore your PATH, you can deactivate it:
nvm deactivate
To set a default Node version to be used in any new shell, use the alias 'default':
nvm alias default node
To use a mirror of the node binaries, set $NVM_NODEJS_ORG_MIRROR
:
export NVM_NODEJS_ORG_MIRROR=https://nodejs.org/dist
nvm install node
NVM_NODEJS_ORG_MIRROR=https://nodejs.org/dist nvm install 4.2
To use a mirror of the io.js binaries, set $NVM_IOJS_ORG_MIRROR
:
export NVM_IOJS_ORG_MIRROR=https://iojs.org/dist
nvm install iojs-v1.0.3
NVM_IOJS_ORG_MIRROR=https://iojs.org/dist nvm install iojs-v1.0.3
nvm use
will not, by default, create a "current" symlink. Set $NVM_SYMLINK_CURRENT
to "true" to enable this behavior, which is sometimes useful for IDEs. Note that using nvm
in multiple shell tabs with this environment variable enabled can cause race conditions.
.nvmrc
You can create a .nvmrc
file containing a node version number (or any other string that nvm
understands; see nvm --help
for details) in the project root directory (or any parent directory).
Afterwards, nvm use
, nvm install
, nvm exec
, nvm run
, and nvm which
will use the version specified in the .nvmrc
file if no version is supplied on the command line.
For example, to make nvm default to the latest 5.9 release, the latest LTS version, or the latest node version for the current directory:
$ echo "5.9" > .nvmrc
$ echo "lts/*" > .nvmrc # to default to the latest LTS version
$ echo "node" > .nvmrc # to default to the latest version
Then when you run nvm:
$ nvm use
Found '/path/to/project/.nvmrc' with version <5.9>
Now using node v5.9.1 (npm v3.7.3)
nvm use
et. al. will traverse directory structure upwards from the current directory looking for the .nvmrc
file. In other words, running nvm use
et. al. in any subdirectory of a directory with an .nvmrc
will result in that .nvmrc
being utilized.
The contents of a .nvmrc
file must be the <version>
(as described by nvm --help
) followed by a newline. No trailing spaces are allowed, and the trailing newline is required.
Deeper Shell Integration
You can use avn
to deeply integrate into your shell and automatically invoke nvm
when changing directories. avn
is not supported by the nvm
development team. Please report issues to the avn
team.
If you prefer a lighter-weight solution, the recipes below have been contributed by nvm
users. They are not supported by the nvm
development team. We are, however, accepting pull requests for more examples.
bash
Automatically call nvm use
Put the following at the end of your $HOME/.bashrc
:
find-up () {
path=$(pwd)
while [[ "$path" != "" && ! -e "$path/$1" ]]; do
path=${path%/*}
done
echo "$path"
}
cdnvm(){
cd "$@";
nvm_path=$(find-up .nvmrc | tr -d '[:space:]')
# If there are no .nvmrc file, use the default nvm version
if [[ ! $nvm_path = *[^[:space:]]* ]]; then
declare default_version;
default_version=$(nvm version default);
# If there is no default version, set it to `node`
# This will use the latest version on your machine
if [[ $default_version == "N/A" ]]; then
nvm alias default node;
default_version=$(nvm version default);
fi
# If the current version is not the default version, set it to use the default version
if [[ $(nvm current) != "$default_version" ]]; then
nvm use default;
fi
elif [[ -s $nvm_path/.nvmrc && -r $nvm_path/.nvmrc ]]; then
declare nvm_version
nvm_version=$(<"$nvm_path"/.nvmrc)
declare locally_resolved_nvm_version
# `nvm ls` will check all locally-available versions
# If there are multiple matching versions, take the latest one
# Remove the `->` and `*` characters and spaces
# `locally_resolved_nvm_version` will be `N/A` if no local versions are found
locally_resolved_nvm_version=$(nvm ls --no-colors "$nvm_version" | tail -1 | tr -d '\->*' | tr -d '[:space:]')
# If it is not already installed, install it
# `nvm install` will implicitly use the newly-installed version
if [[ "$locally_resolved_nvm_version" == "N/A" ]]; then
nvm install "$nvm_version";
elif [[ $(nvm current) != "$locally_resolved_nvm_version" ]]; then
nvm use "$nvm_version";
fi
fi
}
alias cd='cdnvm'
This alias would search 'up' from your current directory in order to detect a .nvmrc
file. If it finds it, it will switch to that version; if not, it will use the default version.
zsh
Calling nvm use
automatically in a directory with a .nvmrc
file
Put this into your $HOME/.zshrc
to call nvm use
automatically whenever you enter a directory that contains an
.nvmrc
file with a string telling nvm which node to use
:
# place this after nvm initialization!
autoload -U add-zsh-hook
load-nvmrc() {
local node_version="$(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
More on this issue in dotphiles/dotzsh.