`nvm which` + `.nvmrc` vs. `nvm which current`

[0cjs]

This is with nvm v0.40.3 on Debian 12.

The Problem

The documentation says that

...nvm which will use the version specified in the .nvmrc file if no version is supplied on the command line.

The help output says:

nvm which [current | ]
Display path to installed node version. Uses .nvmrc if available and version is omitted.

These are all correct, but the design is annoying because npm which fails if there is no .nvmrc found:

$ nvm which
No .nvmrc file found
[...full help output here deleted...]
$ echo exitcode=$?
exitcode=127

In this case you must use nvm which current, which always shows the version that would be selected if .nvmrc were not found. (A related problem: nvm current does the same.)

Solutions

Probably nvm which should be changed to use current if no .nvmrc is found. Without this, it's a bunch of extra work to reliably use nvm which when a .nvmrc file may or may not be present.

It's unclear to me what current is supposed to mean, and this appears to be undocumented. Is it the version of node in the path, if present, or the version that will be used by nvm exec etc? (These are not the same if a .nvmrc file is present.) I just noticed that nvm exec etc. accept an undocumented current argument for the version, where it appears to be the latter:

$ nvm current
v24.11.1
$ nvm which
Found '/home/cjs/tmp/nvm/.nvmrc' with version <v22>
/home/cjs/.nvm/versions/node/v22.20.0/bin/node
$ nvm which current
/home/cjs/.nvm/versions/node/v24.11.1/bin/node
$ nvm exec true
Found '/home/cjs/tmp/nvm/.nvmrc' with version <v22>
Running node v22.20.0 (npm v11.6.2)
$ nvm exec current true
Running node v24.11.1 (npm v11.6.2)

So probably the documentation should be updated to indicate what current is and exactly how it works, including documenting current in the help output for all subcommands that accept it.

[ljharb]

current is whatever's currently nvm used.

I'm happy to review PRs improving the docs.

As for changing the default behavior, I could be convinced to add a flag to opt in to that behavior, but I don't think it's a good idea for "no nvmrc found" to succeed and do something different.