v4.0.0

[github-actions]

v4.0.0 is the next major release.

Timetable: to be announced.

🎉 Highlights

Nuxt CLI v4 is a performance, feature and DX-focused release.

Watch this space to keep up-to-date on what's coming! 🔥

Breaking changes

We're taking the opportunity to adopt the following breaking changes:

• we're dropping support for @nuxt/bridge (as Nuxt 2 has been EOL for some time now).
• we now require Node v22.19+, v24.11+, or v26+

Performance

We're working to reduce the dependency count and total install size. You can track the current progress here.

👉 Changelog

compare changes

🩹 Fixes

• curl: suggest a path every project serves when the URL is missing (14c16bf)
• dev: suggest a route that exists, only where it can be read (354d42b)
• cli: drop clack gutter framing from redirected output (39420c9)
• dev: only draw the startup QR code in a terminal (3904632)

❤️ Contributors

• Daniel Roe (@danielroe)

[pkg-pr-new]

• nuxt-cli-playground

  npm i https://pkg.pr.new/create-nuxt@1482
  

  npm i https://pkg.pr.new/nuxi@1482
  

  npm i https://pkg.pr.new/@nuxt/cli@1482
  

commit: 489c15f

[github-actions]

CLI benchmark

@nuxt/cli v3.37.0 (baseline) vs v4.0.0 (this PR)

Metric	baseline v3.37.0	head v4.0.0	Delta
nuxt --version wall time (median)	66 ms	63 ms	-4.9%
nuxt --help wall time (median)	137 ms	137 ms	-0.4%
nuxt dev --help wall time (median)	103 ms	102 ms	-0.9%
nuxt --version modules loaded	38	38	0.0%
nuxt --help modules loaded	135	135	0.0%
nuxt dev --help modules loaded	80	80	0.0%
Installed node_modules	2.32 MB	2.32 MB	-0.0%
Published tarball (packed)	264.7 kB	264.7 kB	0.0%

Full report

@nuxt/cli v3.37.0 (baseline) vs v4.0.0 (head)

Setting	Value
Baseline	ref:fb86ed4b60b43603c76f6b18ff976b5440a29dbe (v3.37.0)
Head	local packages/nuxt-cli at b736794 (v4.0.0)
Node	v24.19.0
OS	Linux 6.17.0 (kernel 6.17.0-1022-azure)
CPU	AMD EPYC 7763 64-Core Processor x 4
Memory	15.6 GB
Load average at start	1.40, 0.44, 0.15
Run started	2026-08-24T07:46:08.010Z

Cold CLI startup

Median of 15 interleaved runs per command, one warmup discarded.

Command	baseline v3.37.0 median	head v4.0.0 median	Delta	baseline v3.37.0 min / p95	head v4.0.0 min / p95
nuxt --version	66 ms	63 ms	-4.9%	62 ms / 69 ms	61 ms / 66 ms
nuxt --version (first output byte)	62 ms	59 ms	-5.2%	58 ms / 65 ms	57 ms / 62 ms
nuxt --help	137 ms	137 ms	-0.4%	132 ms / 139 ms	133 ms / 139 ms
nuxt --help (first output byte)	133 ms	132 ms	-0.4%	127 ms / 134 ms	128 ms / 133 ms
nuxt dev --help	103 ms	102 ms	-0.9%	101 ms / 107 ms	100 ms / 107 ms
nuxt dev --help (first output byte)	99 ms	97 ms	-1.2%	96 ms / 102 ms	96 ms / 102 ms
nuxt <unknown-command> (no-op)	147 ms	146 ms	-0.3%	144 ms / 150 ms	142 ms / 148 ms
nuxt <unknown-command> (no-op) (first output byte)	142 ms	141 ms	-0.6%	139 ms / 145 ms	137 ms / 143 ms

Module load cost

Counted with a module.registerHooks load hook, compile cache disabled. Counts every JS module actually evaluated on that code path (built-ins excluded, native addons excluded).

Command	baseline v3.37.0 modules	head v4.0.0 modules	Delta	baseline v3.37.0 source bytes	head v4.0.0 source bytes	Delta
nuxt --version	38	38	0.0%	291.7 kB	291.7 kB	-0.0%
nuxt --help	135	135	0.0%	976.8 kB	976.8 kB	-0.0%
nuxt dev --help	80	80	0.0%	586.0 kB	586.0 kB	-0.0%

Install footprint and published tarball

Each version installed on its own into an empty project with nothing but @nuxt/cli as a dependency, so the tree is exactly the CLI and its transitive dependencies. npm cache is warm and the registry is only consulted for metadata, so install wall time is indicative, not a network benchmark.

Metric	baseline v3.37.0	head v4.0.0	Delta
Direct dependencies of @nuxt/cli	21	21	0.0%
Packages in the installed tree (unique name@version)	34	34	0.0%
Unique package names	34	34	0.0%
Package directories on disk (cross-check)	28	28	0.0%
Installed node_modules on disk	2.32 MB	2.32 MB	-0.0%
Installed files	419	419	0.0%
Install wall time (warm npm cache, median of 3)	690 ms	689 ms	-0.1%
Published tarball (packed)	264.7 kB	264.7 kB	0.0%
Published tarball (unpacked)	921.5 kB	921.5 kB	-0.0%
Files in tarball	131	131	0.0%

Interleaved runs on a shared runner: trust the deltas, not the absolute timings. The dev, restart and build suites run locally via pnpm bench:cli.

[codspeed-hq]

Merging this PR will not alter performance

✅ 2 untouched benchmarks

---

_{Comparing release/v4.0.0 (489c15f) with main (fb86ed4)}