Nx should define supported Node.js versions

Description

Nx should clearly define which node.js versions are supported. The supported versions should also be specified in the package.json files of the @nrwl packages. Only LTS and Current Releases of Node.js should be supported.

For the release and end of life dates see: https://github.com/nodejs/Release/blob/main/schedule.json

Motivation

It is not clear which Node versions Nx supports. I cannot find any section in the docs about the supported versions of node. With the End of Life of Node.js v10 in April many packages Nx depends on started to only support Node v12 and newer. Because Nx does not clearly specify which versions it supports Contributors cannot update packages to versions which only support Node 12 and newer and it is not clear which features of node they can use.

Suggested Implementation

the nx-release.js script should add the engines field to the created package.json files. I would recommend adding the engines field to the main package.json of the repository and copy it to the created package.json so that there only exists one version of the engines. Furthermore the Nx documentation should clearly describe which versions of Node.js are supported.

The currently correct engines field should look like:

"engines": {
    "node": "^12.13.0 || ^14.15.0 || >=16.0.0"
  }

[marckassay]

In addition, I discovered in Turborepo docs newer versions of node, developers can specify packageManager key in package.json.

[marckassay]

@Phillip9587 explained the need for this clearly. In addition, perhaps having an HTML chart similar to what Cordova documentation has here, would be helpful. Because not all the latest dependencies (node, Angular, React, TS, etc.) are supported by Nx.

As @Phillip9587 suggested having “engines” declared in package.json would be ideal. In the meantime, looking at the @types/node version here will at the very least indicate roughly what node version was used last when that value changed.