Migrating from rbenv / nvm to mise

Mise Show archive.org snapshot is a fast tool that can manage your Ruby and Node.js (+ pnpm) versions. It replaces rbenv and nvm in that regard.

It installs precompiled Ruby binaries, so installing a new version will take seconds, not minutes.

The switch only takes some minutes using the instructions below. After this you will need to re-install your Ruby and Node versions, as well as global gems and npm packages.

Remove shell configuration for rbenv and nvm

Search for rbenv and nvm in your ~/.bashrc and ~/.profile. Then remove all lines related to rbenv or nvm.

Lines will look like this, but might look slightly different in your configuration:

eval "$(rbenv init - bash)"

source /home/$user/.rbenvrc

export NVM_DIR="$HOME/.nvm"
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/nvm.sh"  # This loads nvm
[ -s "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion" ] && \. "$NVM_DIR/bash_completion"  # This loads nvm bash_completion

Remove installed version of Ruby and Node

Installed versions live in your home. You can remove them like this:

rm -rf ~/.rbenv
rm -rf ~/.nvm

Install mise

Follow the installation guidelines at https://mise.jdx.dev/getting-started.html Show archive.org snapshot , especially these steps:

• Install mise Show archive.org snapshot
• Activate mise Show archive.org snapshot (auto-configures mise when you cd anywhere)

Then check if the installation succeeded with mise -v:

$ mise -v
              _                                        __              
   ____ ___  (_)_______        ___  ____        ____  / /___ _________
  / __ `__ \/ / ___/ _ \______/ _ \/ __ \______/ __ \/ / __ `/ ___/ _ \
 / / / / / / (__  )  __/_____/  __/ / / /_____/ /_/ / / /_/ / /__/  __/
/_/ /_/ /_/_/____/\___/      \___/_/ /_/     / .___/_/\__,_/\___/\___/
                                            /_/                 by @jdx
2026.10.10 linux-x64 (2026-10-14)

Add mise configuration

We want to keep versions in .ruby-version and .nvmrc, not mise.toml.

For this, add the following configuration to ~/.config/mise/config.toml

[settings]
idiomatic_version_file_enable_tools = ["ruby", "node", "pnpm"]

[tools]
ruby = "latest"

Re-open terminal windows

We changed bash configuration above, but your existing terminal windows are still using the old settings.

Close and re-open your terminal windows.

Using mise

When you cd into a project folder, mise will automatically activate the correct version of Ruby, Node and pnpm for you.

When a version is missing, mise will print a warning when you cd. You can then install missing versions with mise install:

$ cd my-project
mise WARN  missing: ruby@3.4.4 node@22.15.1
$ mise install

Tip

Do not call mise use, which would a mise.toml to your project.

Mise will also install missing versions when you try to use them the first time (e.g. you call node or ruby).