What's New in Node 22?

Install Node 22

There are a few different ways to install Node and manage its versions. One of the best ways is to use nvm. In this lesson, we'll see how to install Node 22 using nvm and switch versions to make use of it.

Working with env Files

Environment files are important for being able to dynamically set runtime variables. These variables are often things like a database connection strings and auth provider parameters. In this lesson, we look at how to use new support for environment files in more recent versions of Node and how we no longer need to rely on packages like dotenv.

Using Watch Mode

When developing Node applications, we often want to reach for something that will automatically restart the process whenever we save a file. Typically this can be done with packages like nodemon. Node now comes with a --watch flag which will do the same work for us.

Using glob for File Matching

There are many cases where we may need to match files based on a pattern. Libraries like glob allow us to do this. Node now comes with support for glob and globSync on the fs module. Let's see how we can make using of glob to dynamically create a set of routes.

Replacing npm run with node run

As it turns out, npm run isn't the most performant command. Node now ships with an experimental feature that allows us to run scripts without as much overhead. Let's see how to make use of it.

How to Require ES Modules

Many libraries no longer support CommonJS at their most recent versions. This has caused a lot of headaches for Node developers who are still using CJS and the require syntax. Fortunately, Node now ships with a way to use the require syntax to work with ES Modules.