Support package.json#devEngines as an idiomatic Node.js version file

[mrmckeb]

Hi there, we've recently moved to Mise and really like it. Thanks for all of the hard work!

We'd like to keep our versions in sync between package.json and mise.toml, as a lot of ecosystem tooling refers to package.json as the source of truth.

I realise there have been requests before for packageManager support, but with Corepack no longer shipped with Node.js, and devEngines supporting more than just a package manager, it feels like the better fit. The ecosystem is starting to align around this, i.e. pnpm/pnpm#8153.

I think this would be the priority:

1. devEngines: All tools, designed for this purpose.
2. packageManager - Designed for package managers only.
3. engines - Designed for install/runtime requirements.

These are some alternatives I can think of:

1. Add the ability to generically read versions from JSON files, natively.
2. Create a plugin for this.

I'm also happy to try to and contribute a PR for this.

[risu729]

This is now supported with #8059!
engines are not, but I think we don't need to.

[mrmckeb]

That's amazing, thank you!

[Xstoudi]

Hey, did you guys had success auto-installing yarn using the devEngines.packageManager field?
mise ls do not show package.json as idiomatic for yarn, but works for node:

    ~/d/project    main !1 ?1  mise ls                                  ✔ 
Tool   Version  Source                       Requested 
node   22.22.0 
node   23.11.1 
node   24.13.1  ~/dev/project/package.json  24
node   25.6.1  
usage  2.16.2   ~/.config/mise/config.toml   latest
yarn   4.12.0  

  "devEngines": {
    "runtime": {
      "name": "node",
      "version": ">=24.0.0",
      "onFail": "error"
    },
    "packageManager": {
      "name": "yarn",
      "version": ">=4.12.0",
      "onFail": "error"
    }
  },

Did I miss something?

[risu729]

I confirmed this. I enabled all, but only yarn didn't work. I guess it's because we use a vfox plugin for yarn.

idiomatic_version_file_enable_tools = ['node', 'yarn', 'npm', 'pnpm']

[risu729]

#8171 should fix this

[marcebdev]

  "devEngines": {
    "runtime": {
      "name": "node",
      "version": ">=25.6.1",
      "onFail": "error"
    },
    "packageManager": {
      "name": "yarn",
      "version": "4.13.0",
      "onFail": "error"
    }
  },

2026.3.15 macos-arm64 (2026-03-25)

mise ls                                                                                     (base) 
Tool  Version           Source                                      Requested 
node  24.14.0          
node  25.6.1 (missing)  ~/Documents/.../package.json  25.6.1
node  25.8.2           

It seems to not read the server string correctly, it's trying to request the exact version rather than moving up to 25.8.2

[dipunm]

We have a project which required minimum version of node due to a dependency feature (require(esm) introduced in 22.12.0)

We kept our .nvmrc file plain:

22

in package.json:

  "devEngines": {
    "runtime": {
      "name": "node",
      "version": ">=22.12.0",
      "onFail": "error"
    }
  },

Weirdly, I am seeing different behaviour on two machines. On mine, it tries to install node 26:

node  26.5.0 (missing)  ......../package.json  >=22.12.0

On my colleagues, it will attempt to install exactly node 22.12.0

The devengines field serves pnpm and works well for that use case, but not so well for mise. Can we configure mise not to read devengines or can we prefer .nvmrc over devengines?

Closed separate discussion here: #11465

[jdx]

Thanks for the report. There is not currently a way to enable .nvmrc for node while excluding only package.json, so I opened #11470 to add a tool-qualified opt-out:

mise settings add idiomatic_version_file_disable_files node:package.json

That keeps .nvmrc enabled for node while still allowing pnpm/yarn to read package.json.

One semantic note: if >=22.12.0 is required because the application relies on a Node runtime feature, the canonical declaration is engines.node. devEngines is aimed at validating contributor tooling. You can still use both if you want npm to enforce the developer environment before install, ci, and run; the opt-out simply prevents mise from treating that compatibility range as its node selector.

AI-assisted — Tool: Codex; model: openai/gpt-5; version: unavailable.

[dipunm]

One semantic note: if >=22.12.0 is required because the application relies on a Node runtime feature, the canonical declaration is engines.node. devEngines is aimed at validating contributor tooling.

Its a dev dependency that requires it.