How to use Vercel
Table of contents
Node.js runtime version
Note that your code will be deployed on Vercel servers, which are running under AWS Lambda on the background.
- By default, Vercel will deploy using Node.js
v12.xruntime, thexmeans it will automatically use the latest version. (This is still true as of January, 2021)- This means that you should update your
.nvmrcto match the version that’s actually being used by Vercel, from time to time. It’s not really a big deal as long as there is a minor version difference, but make sure to use the same major version to avoid “surprises”.
- This means that you should update your
- See official Vercel Node.js supported versions
- See available AWS Lambda runtimes, it may be interesting for reference, and it’s important to understand what really runs your source code. Vercel is just a proxy that simplifies things.
- We provide a built-in utility you can use on any online demo at
/api/status, for instance at https://nrn-default.now.sh/api/status.- You can also use this endpoint locally, or on your own deployments.
- Tip: As a security measure, you may want to either disable or protect that endpoint, using Basic-Auth for instance.
Node.js v12 will reach EOL as of April 2022. Source
By experience, we expect AWS to upgrade the Node.js runtime to allow the use of Node.js v14 around Q2 2021. Vercel will most likely quickly follow.
AWS Lambda usually allows the next Node.js LTS version every year around April, and deprecates the latest EOL version around the same time.
You should consider this, as it might affect you when picking libraries, as they will need to be compatible (or maintained) with the upcoming Node.js version. It is usually not an issue, but we personally ran into troubles with unmaintained binaries (like Dialogflow) in 2018, when we were using AWS Lambda directly (without Vercel).
Using Vercel, we didn’t run into any Node.js upgrade issue since 2019. All went smoothly, we expect the upgrade to Node.js 14 to be smooth as well.