RFC: Add a `volta update all` (or similar) command to update all installed tool binaries/packages

[mochafreddo]

Summary

Add a Volta-wide command like volta update all (or similar) to list and update all installed tool binaries and packages at once.

Background / Motivation

Currently, Volta users have to run volta list and then manually reinstall each package at the latest version (e.g., volta install <pkg>@latest). This is inconvenient when many tools are globally installed or when maintaining a consistent environment across machines.

Example workflow today:

volta list
volta install http-server@latest
volta install typescript@latest
volta install nodemon@latest

This becomes repetitive and error-prone when managing multiple tool binaries.

Proposed UX

Example interactive flow:

> volta update all

⚡️ 3 tool binaries ready for update:
  - typescript          5.1.2  →  5.2.0
  - http-server         0.12.3 →  0.13.0
  - nodemon             2.0.21 →  2.0.22

Update now? (Y/n)

Or a non-interactive mode:

volta update all --yes

Why This Helps

• Saves time when maintaining many global tools
• Improves ergonomics of Volta as a unified toolchain manager
• Reduces manual repetitive commands
• Aligns with workflows seen in other version managers

Considerations

• Should this update only tool binaries, or also runtimes (Node, Yarn)?
• Should it support scoping (e.g., only packages, only runtimes)?
• Interactive vs non-interactive modes

Related Discussion

A similar feature request was raised previously in #1440, but it appears inactive.
This issue proposes revisiting the idea with a clearer UX proposal.

[jakariyaa]

It's a great idea and really useful to have such feature. is it being considered to implement?

[mochafreddo]

Unfortunately, Volta appears to be effectively unmaintained at this point, so it seems unlikely that this issue will be addressed upstream.

[chriskrycho]

Indeed: see #2080