Node.js and JavaScript in 2026

Learnings and Opinions

It is 2026, I still us nvm to manage my local node installation, most of the time I just run nvm install --lts

I tried pnpm, it seems faster, but it introduces a new lock file, so I stick with npm.

Now you can be more secure with this .npmrc configuration.

save-exact=true
min-release-age=5
ignore-scripts=true

Notes on Packages

dotenv is not needed anymore, node can handle an env file with node --env-file-if-exists=file

A few other packages can be replaced:

• node-fetch → use the built in fetch()

• Test frameworks → node:test

• chalk / kleur → util.styleText()

• glob → fs.glob()

• rimraf → fs.rm({ recursive: true })

• mkdirp → fs.mkdir({ recursive: true })

• uuid (v4) → crypto.randomUUID()

Standard library has now a node: prefix so use

import fs from 'node:fs';
import path from 'node:path';
import os from 'node:os';
...

knip

I love the tool knip, it highlights all unused imports, packages. With this you can do a good deep cleanup. example config knip.json

{
  "entry": ["src/index.tsx"],
  "project": ["src/**"],
  "ignore": [
    "/src/openapi/**",
  ],
  "exclude": ["enumMembers"]
}

Other Tools

• check what is outdated: npx npm-check-updates -i --format group

• check for critical: npm audit --audit-level=critical

Other Notes

• structuredClone() to get a deep copy

Frameworks

Vue.js is still a great choice.

To research

The proper way to run a TypeScript application is still on my todo list. We use ts-node but that has been deprecated. Requirements are: good developer experience with hotreload, the LSP in the editor most likely uses TypeScript so the bundler should match