Is "very first" hyphenated? [closed]

In the sentence:

That was my very first phone.

should the words "very" and "first" be hyphenated?

I've read that "first" and "ever" should be hyphenated, but what about "very" and "first"?

'Very' and 'first' should not be hyphenated. 'Very' is an adverb and grades the adjective/number 'first'.

I have never heard that 'first' and 'ever' should be hyphenated. Not in British English anyway.

http://www.glossophilia.org/?p=5808

Hyphenation is a matter of punctuation, and punctuation is a matter of style, so you should be guided by your manual of style. I prefer the Chicago Manual of Style, which does not list first ever as a compound noun and would thus not advise a hyphen in a sentence like

It was the first ever.

Supposing that ever is interpreted as an adjectival abbreviation for ever-seen, the CMS would consider the term a compound of the class adverb not ending in -ly followed by an adjective, and the advice would be to hyphenate:

It was the first-ever occasion.

The Ngram viewer find plenty of examples of both forms, so it's up to you (or your editor).