Consider switching to mise/asdf

[jhnns]

I'm thinking about moving to asdf for handling runtime versions like node or pnpm, see #90

[jhnns]

What is asdf?

asdf is a multi-runtime version manager — a single CLI tool with a unified .tool-versions config file to manage all your tool versions across projects. It supports Bash, ZSH, Fish & Elvish and has a plugin ecosystem for adding new runtimes.

It's essentially a replacement for having nvm + pyenv + rbenv + etc. installed simultaneously.

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Comparable Tools

Tool	Written in	Scope	Key trait
nvm	Shell	Node only	OG, widely supported
fnm	Rust	Node only	Fast nvm alternative
Volta	Rust	JS toolchain	Pins versions in package.json
mise	Rust	Multi-runtime	Modern asdf rewrite
pyenv/rbenv	Shell	Single lang	Language-specific

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The Real Contenders (for a fullstack TS dev)

asdf is showing its age. Mise rewrote asdf in Rust while maintaining compatibility with asdf plugins, fixing asdf's UX issues, improving performance, and adding environment variable management and a task runner.

mise is the honest recommendation today:

• Drop-in asdf replacement (reads .tool-versions)
• Significantly faster (Rust vs shell)
• Manages env vars per project (like direnv)
• Actively developed

Volta is compelling if you're Node/JS-only: Volta has deeper integration into the Node.js ecosystem — it supports managing npm and Yarn, allows managing global npm packages, and migrates global npm packages whenever new Node.js versions are installed. However, Corepack has made Volta less appealing since Node.js's built-in Corepack can do much of what made Volta attractive.

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Pick

• Fullstack, multiple languages (Node + Python + Ruby + Go + ...) → mise
• Pure Node/TS shop, hate complexity → fnm (fast, simple) or Volta
• Already on asdf → migrate to mise, it's a near-zero-friction upgrade

Avoid vanilla nvm for new setups — shell-script-based, slow, no multi-language support.

[jhnns]

@leomelzer @niklashaug @adnomina
Personally, I switched to mise. For peerigon/template, I decided to remove tool specific files and go with the idiomatic devEngines (see PR #92). mise supports devEngines with mise settings add idiomatic_version_file_enable_tools node so this is a nice solution.

For projects, that are using pnpm (#90), mise + devEngines is also a nice solution.