Which Node version should I use to develop my package?

Question

I'm currently developing my package with Node v12.14.0 on my local machine but a PR I received from Dependabot made me think about how that influences the compatibility of my library.

• If I develop my library using v12 features it shouldn't be able to work if run in other versions that have conflicting breaking changes, right?
• I never bothered specifying an engine restriction in my package.json, is that something I should do? Or is it something that I shouldn't worry about?
• If there is more than one active LTS version, which one should I use?

I'm just looking to know if there's any "standard"/recommended way to handle this, or if I should just decide which works best for me and not worry about that.

Answer 1

There is no "standard" way to handle this. You can put the node version in package.json to define the minimal engine version.

{ "engines" : { "node" : ">=0.12" } }

If you want to make it available for most of the developers, use the active LTS version. Dubnium (v10) is still supported, so you can define it as a minimum requirement to make it available virtually to everyone.

Answer 2

As a package developer, you should use the "Current" version.

For everyone else, us the developers, we should use "LTS" long-term support version.