NodeConf EU and Collab Summit Recap

The vlt team was in Waterford and Dublin last week to attend NodeConf EU and the Node.js Collaborator Summit and to share the first public version of the vlt Client and Serverless Registry that we've been working on since launching the company.

"How to Build a Faster Package Manager"

Isaac Schlueter kicked things off with the opening talk of the conference titled "How to Build a Faster Package Manager". It was a technical dive into the specific needs of a package manager and strategies to make it as fast as possible.

He also shared ~~full screen graphs with unlabeled axes showing how blazing fast vlt is~~ the following quote from the creator of another package manager on how we approach benchmarks:

Isaac standing at a lectern in front of a room of seated people gesturing to a slide that reads '"Benchmarks should be a diagnostic tool, not a marketing flex" - Isaac Z. Schlueter, NodeConf EU, 2024' — Photo credit: Nico Kaiser

The talk also presciently touched on the question we ended up getting most often since launching: "why". The tl;dr is: we have a lot more ideas on the future of JavaScript package and project management. We'll be sure to share the full video of the talk once it becomes available.

Isaac wearing a black hoodie and smiling in front of a slightly out-of-focus slide with the word "why" on it. — Somehow Isaac knew we would get variations of this question. Photo credit: Nico Kaiser

Workshop

Next on the agenda was a workshop led by Ruy Adorno and I showcasing some of the features available in our newly released client and registry:

Using vlt gui and vlt query to visualize your dependency graph directly in the browser
Running the vlt Serverless Registry as a proxy with advanced authentication and token management

Luke standing at a lectern with the words "NodeConf EU" on the front with a sticker covered laptop in front of him. — Luke probably trying to tie together a metaphor relating lockfiles and lacroscopic surgery.

Ruy looking at the slides and holding a microphone while similing. Luke is in the foreground and out-of-focus. — Ruy probably describing the intricacies of the vlt query language.

We walked attendees through running vlt install to build a large dependency graph in a monorepo of their favorite frontend framework and then vlt gui to go dependency spelunking through many 1000s of packages.

You can do the same in your project today by running vlt gui , which is is a non-destructive command that will only read from current node_modules directory. You can also run rm -rf node_modules && vlt install first to get the full vlt experience. And please report any bugs that you find!

The Booth

We spent the rest of the conference hanging out at the vlt booth to answer questions, demo more vlt use cases, and hand out shiny stickers. If you missed us at NodeConf EU you can come hang out at the virtual vlt booth on Bluesky. And if you want to learn where we're going to be next, sign up for our mailing list.

A table with rows of neatly organized stickers. Behind the table is a booth that reads "Builing the future of JavaScript packages". There is a TV to right right showing the vlt.sh homepage. — The stickers are free. The managed registry is not.

Node.js Collaborator Summit

The rest of the week was spent in Dublin attending the Node.js Collaborator Summit hosted at the Baseline Community and Workspace. Node.js collaborators spent two days discussing various topics on the future of the runtime.

Of particular interest to the vlt team was the session on CJS/ESM interoperability which touched on support for single executable applications (SEA). We plan to ship a future version of the vlt client as a compiled executable which would allow for faster performance and eliminating users needing a compatible runtime already installed.

This is Just the Beginning!

Isaac standing at a lectern talking to the audience. To the left is a large slide of text that reads: "try it! it's good!
npm install g vlt
There's a lot that didn't fit in this talk! (come to the vit workshop!)
For example, explore your project's dependencies: npx -y vlt gui
This is just the beginning!
https://vit.sh
https://discord.gg/vItpkg" — Really! Try `vlt`! It's good!

If you want to say hi or have any questions about vlt or vsr, come join us in Discord.

To follow development more closely, you can watch the vltpkg monorepo for releases to the vlt client and the vsr repo for the serverless registry.