Version detection
The most powerful feature in proto is its contextual version detection, that is triggered with
proto run, proto bin, or when a shim is executed. So what
does this mean exactly? Before a tool in proto's toolchain can be executed, we need to determine the
version of the tool to execute with. If a detected version exists locally, we proceed using that
binary, otherwise we fail with a missing installation error.
When detecting a version, the following steps are checked, in the order as listed:
1. Version is explicitly passed as a command line argument
$ proto run node 18.0.0
2. Version is provided with the PROTO_*_VERSION environment variable
$ PROTO_NODE_VERSION=18.0.0 proto run node
3. Version is located by traversing the file system
This step will attempt to find a configuration or manifest file in the current working directory, and traverse upwards through parent directories (stops at the user's home directory) until a file is found.
3.1. Version is defined locally in .prototools
A .prototools file was found and a version entry exists for the current tool. This is also known
as a "local version" and can be created with proto pin.
node = "18.0.0"
3.2. Version is defined in the tool's ecosystem
Depending on the tool, a version is extracted from a found file unique to that tool's ecosystem.
This includes version manager configs (.nvmrc, etc), manifest files (package.json, etc), and
more.
18.0.0
4. Version is defined globally
As the last check, we look for a "global version" that was pinned with
proto pin --global or proto install --pin. This version
is stored at ~/.proto/.prototools.
5. Version could not be detected
If all the previous steps have failed, then we could not detect an applicable version, and the process will fail.