Briefly mention NVM in the install instructions.

[alekshaugom]

Request Type

Other

What needs to be documented?

The installation guide should mention that Node Version Manager (NVM) is recommended for managing Node versions, since Harper currently requires Node 24, while many systems default to Node 25.

Where should this be documented?

https://docs.harperdb.io/docs/getting-started/installation

Why is this needed?

Including NVM setup instructions will help users avoid version-related errors during installation.
This addition aligns with what’s shown in Ivan’s videos and ensures the documentation supports a smoother getting-started experience.

Existing information

No response

Priority/Impact

Medium - important but not urgent

Are you planning to fix this issue?

No, just reporting the issue

First-time contributor support

• I'm new to contributing and would appreciate guidance on the process
• I'd like help understanding the project structure
• I need assistance with setting up the development environment
• I'm comfortable contributing but new to this project specifically

[Ethan-Arrowood]

NVM is not a standard tool. I personally use fnm and pretty much every node dev out there has their own preference.

Furthermore, I'm surprised to hear you default to Node 25 ... that is a brand new version! I haven't even tried it yet.

Harper currently supports Node.js 20, 22, and 24 (at least those are the version numbers we test on). I don't think we've historically tried odd-number versions as they have such a short lifetime. I'm fairly certain we skipped support for 21 and 23.

The technical term we use is Harper is guaranteed on LTS (Long-Term Support) versions of Node.js (both Maintenance and Active LTS). https://nodejs.org/en/about/previous-releases

This is fairly common practice in the Node.js world.

So anyways, back to your particular recommendation. I do not think we should explicitly recommend a tool such as NVM; but instead make it more clear which version of Node users should use. I think one key assumption of our users is they are relatively experienced Node.js engineers. We do not need to be in the business of covering basic/first-time Node.js details. There is a really awesome page on Node.js site for how to download and managed Node.js versions: https://nodejs.org/en/download

If anything we should simply link out to that page directly.

Also, this is nothing against NVM, my good friend is actually the maintainer of it and its a great tool. I just don't think our docs is the place to include opinionated details like that.