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Node-Modules configuration options with pnpm

· 2 min read
Zoltan Kochan
Zoltan Kochan

There are many ways to create a node_modules directory. Your goal must be to create the most strict one but if that is not possible, there are options to make a loose node_modules as well.

The default setup​

By default, pnpm v5 will create a semi-strict node_modules. Semi-strict means that your application will only be able to require packages that are added as dependencies to package.json (with a few exceptions). However, your dependencies will be able to access any packages.

The default configuration looks like this:

; All packages are hoisted to node_modules/.pnpm/node_modules
hoist-pattern[]=*

; All types are hoisted to the root in order to make TypeScript happy
public-hoist-pattern[]=*types*

; All ESLint-related packages are hoisted to the root as well
public-hoist-pattern[]=*eslint*

Plug'n'Play. The strictest configuration​

pnpm supports Yarn's Plug'n'Play since v5.9. With PnP, both your application and the dependencies of your application will have access only to their declared dependencies. This is even stricter then setting hoist=false because inside a monorepo, your application will not be able to access even the dependencies of the root project.

To use Plug'n'Play, set these settings:

node-linker=pnp
symlink=false

A strict, traditional modules directory​

If you are not ready to use PnP yet, you can still be strict and only allow packages to access their own dependencies by setting the hoist configuration to false:

hoist=false

However, if some of your dependencies are trying to access packages that they don't have in dependencies, you have two options:

  1. Create a pnpmfile.js and use a hook to add the missing dependency to the package's manifest.

  2. Add a pattern to the hoist-pattern setting. For instance, if the not found module is babel-core, add the following setting to .npmrc:

    hoist-pattern[]=babel-core

The worst case - hoisting to the root​

Some tools might not work even with the default configuration of pnpm, which hoists everything to the root of the virtual store and some packages to the root. In this case, you can hoist either everything or a subset of dependencies to the root of the modules directory.

Hoisting everything to the root of node_modules:

shamefully-hoist=true

Hoisting only packages that match a pattern:

public-hoist-pattern[]=babel-*