Use .nvmrc

[bitdivine]

Motivation

Each of our ICP projects specifies a specific node version. This is important to get reliable results and reproducible builds. But when switching between projects it is necessary to remember to switch node version for native (non-dockerized) builds. This is an unnecessary risk.

The situation with Rust is better; if there is a rust-toolchain.toml file, the rust version in that file is used automatically (when running dfx build and similar commands).

It would be nice if front-end canister builds did the same.

Proposed solution

• If there is an .nvmrc file, dfx build of a front-end canister could use it. For example, this uses the node version in the .nvmrc:

  nvm exec npm ci
  nvm exec npm run build
  

• If there is a .node-version file, do something similar. I find this situation a bit ambiguous though. The .node-version file is used by many tools. Maybe someone actively does NOT want to use nvm. By the existence of a .node-version file we cannot determine the user's preferred node versioning tool. Maybe it would be best to do nothing in this case. A user can always opt in by soft-linking .nvmrc to the .node-version file.
• Otherwise call npm directly.