Skip to main content
Version: 9.x

Settings (.npmrc)

pnpm gets its configuration from the command line, environment variables, and .npmrc files.

The pnpm config command can be used to update and edit the contents of the user and global .npmrc files.

The four relevant files are:

  • per-project configuration file (/path/to/my/project/.npmrc)
  • per-workspace configuration file (the directory that contains the pnpm-workspace.yaml file)
  • per-user configuration file (~/.npmrc)
  • global configuration file (/etc/npmrc)

All .npmrc files are an INI-formatted list of key = value parameters.

Values in the .npmrc files may contain env variables using the ${NAME} syntax. The env variables may also be specified with default values. Using ${NAME-fallback} will return fallback if NAME isn't set. ${NAME:-fallback} will return fallback if NAME isn't set, or is an empty string.

Dependency Hoisting Settings​

hoist​

  • Default: true
  • Type: boolean

When true, all dependencies are hoisted to node_modules/.pnpm/node_modules. This makes unlisted dependencies accessible to all packages inside node_modules.

hoist-workspace-packages​

  • Default: true
  • Type: boolean

When true, packages from the workspaces are symlinked to either <workspace_root>/node_modules/.pnpm/node_modules or to <workspace_root>/node_modules depending on other hoisting settings (hoist-pattern and public-hoist-pattern).

hoist-pattern​

  • Default: ['*']
  • Type: string[]

Tells pnpm which packages should be hoisted to node_modules/.pnpm/node_modules. By default, all packages are hoisted - however, if you know that only some flawed packages have phantom dependencies, you can use this option to exclusively hoist the phantom dependencies (recommended).

For instance:

hoist-pattern[]=*eslint*
hoist-pattern[]=*babel*

You may also exclude patterns from hoisting using !.

For instance:

hoist-pattern[]=*types*
hoist-pattern[]=!@types/react

public-hoist-pattern​

  • Default: ['*eslint*', '*prettier*']
  • Type: string[]

Unlike hoist-pattern, which hoists dependencies to a hidden modules directory inside the virtual store, public-hoist-pattern hoists dependencies matching the pattern to the root modules directory. Hoisting to the root modules directory means that application code will have access to phantom dependencies, even if they modify the resolution strategy improperly.

This setting is useful when dealing with some flawed pluggable tools that don't resolve dependencies properly.

For instance:

public-hoist-pattern[]=*plugin*

Note: Setting shamefully-hoist to true is the same as setting public-hoist-pattern to *.

You may also exclude patterns from hoisting using !.

For instance:

public-hoist-pattern[]=*types*
public-hoist-pattern[]=!@types/react

shamefully-hoist​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

By default, pnpm creates a semistrict node_modules, meaning dependencies have access to undeclared dependencies but modules outside of node_modules do not. With this layout, most of the packages in the ecosystem work with no issues. However, if some tooling only works when the hoisted dependencies are in the root of node_modules, you can set this to true to hoist them for you.

Node-Modules Settings​

modules-dir​

  • Default: node_modules
  • Type: path

The directory in which dependencies will be installed (instead of node_modules).

node-linker​

  • Default: isolated
  • Type: isolated, hoisted, pnp

Defines what linker should be used for installing Node packages.

  • isolated - dependencies are symlinked from a virtual store at node_modules/.pnpm.
  • hoisted - a flat node_modules without symlinks is created. Same as the node_modules created by npm or Yarn Classic. One of Yarn's libraries is used for hoisting, when this setting is used. Legitimate reasons to use this setting:
    1. Your tooling doesn't work well with symlinks. A React Native project will most probably only work if you use a hoisted node_modules.
    2. Your project is deployed to a serverless hosting provider. Some serverless providers (for instance, AWS Lambda) don't support symlinks. An alternative solution for this problem is to bundle your application before deployment.
    3. If you want to publish your package with "bundledDependencies".
    4. If you are running Node.js with the --preserve-symlinks flag.
  • pnp - no node_modules. Plug'n'Play is an innovative strategy for Node that is used by Yarn Berry. It is recommended to also set symlink setting to false when using pnp as your linker.
  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When symlink is set to false, pnpm creates a virtual store directory without any symlinks. It is a useful setting together with node-linker=pnp.

enable-modules-dir​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When false, pnpm will not write any files to the modules directory (node_modules). This is useful for when the modules directory is mounted with filesystem in userspace (FUSE). There is an experimental CLI that allows you to mount a modules directory with FUSE: @pnpm/mount-modules.

virtual-store-dir​

  • Default: node_modules/.pnpm
  • Types: path

The directory with links to the store. All direct and indirect dependencies of the project are linked into this directory.

This is a useful setting that can solve issues with long paths on Windows. If you have some dependencies with very long paths, you can select a virtual store in the root of your drive (for instance C:\my-project-store).

Or you can set the virtual store to .pnpm and add it to .gitignore. This will make stacktraces cleaner as paths to dependencies will be one directory higher.

NOTE: the virtual store cannot be shared between several projects. Every project should have its own virtual store (except for in workspaces where the root is shared).

virtual-store-dir-max-length​

Added in: v9.1.0

  • Default: 120
  • Types: number

Sets the maximum allowed length of directory names inside the virtual store directory (node_modules/.pnpm). You may set this to a lower number if you encounter long path issues on Windows.

package-import-method​

  • Default: auto
  • Type: auto, hardlink, copy, clone, clone-or-copy

Controls the way packages are imported from the store (if you want to disable symlinks inside node_modules, then you need to change the node-linker setting, not this one).

  • auto - try to clone packages from the store. If cloning is not supported then hardlink packages from the store. If neither cloning nor linking is possible, fall back to copying
  • hardlink - hard link packages from the store
  • clone-or-copy - try to clone packages from the store. If cloning is not supported then fall back to copying
  • copy - copy packages from the store
  • clone - clone (AKA copy-on-write or reference link) packages from the store

Cloning is the best way to write packages to node_modules. It is the fastest way and safest way. When cloning is used, you may edit files in your node_modules and they will not be modified in the central content-addressable store.

Unfortunately, not all file systems support cloning. We recommend using a copy-on-write (CoW) file system (for instance, Btrfs instead of Ext4 on Linux) for the best experience with pnpm.

modules-cache-max-age​

  • Default: 10080 (7 days in minutes)
  • Type: number

The time in minutes after which orphan packages from the modules directory should be removed. pnpm keeps a cache of packages in the modules directory. This boosts installation speed when switching branches or downgrading dependencies.

dlx-cache-max-age​

  • Default: 1440 (1 day in minutes)
  • Type: number

The time in minutes after which dlx cache expires. After executing a dlx command, pnpm keeps a cache that omits the installation step for subsequent calls to the same dlx command.

Store Settings​

store-dir​

  • Default:
    • If the $PNPM_HOME env variable is set, then $PNPM_HOME/store
    • If the $XDG_DATA_HOME env variable is set, then $XDG_DATA_HOME/pnpm/store
    • On Windows: ~/AppData/Local/pnpm/store
    • On macOS: ~/Library/pnpm/store
    • On Linux: ~/.local/share/pnpm/store
  • Type: path

The location where all the packages are saved on the disk.

The store should be always on the same disk on which installation is happening, so there will be one store per disk. If there is a home directory on the current disk, then the store is created inside it. If there is no home on the disk, then the store is created at the root of the filesystem. For example, if installation is happening on a filesystem mounted at /mnt, then the store will be created at /mnt/.pnpm-store. The same goes for Windows systems.

It is possible to set a store from a different disk but in that case pnpm will copy packages from the store instead of hard-linking them, as hard links are only possible on the same filesystem.

verify-store-integrity​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

By default, if a file in the store has been modified, the content of this file is checked before linking it to a project's node_modules. If verify-store-integrity is set to false, files in the content-addressable store will not be checked during installation.

use-running-store-server​

danger

Deprecated feature

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

Only allows installation with a store server. If no store server is running, installation will fail.

strict-store-pkg-content-check​

Added in: v9.4.0

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

Some registries allow the exact same content to be published under different package names and/or versions. This breaks the validity checks of packages in the store. To avoid errors when verifying the names and versions of such packages in the store, you may set the strict-store-pkg-content-check setting to false.

Lockfile Settings​

lockfile​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When set to false, pnpm won't read or generate a pnpm-lock.yaml file.

prefer-frozen-lockfile​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When set to true and the available pnpm-lock.yaml satisfies the package.json dependencies directive, a headless installation is performed. A headless installation skips all dependency resolution as it does not need to modify the lockfile.

lockfile-include-tarball-url​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

Add the full URL to the package's tarball to every entry in pnpm-lock.yaml.

git-branch-lockfile​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When set to true, the generated lockfile name after installation will be named based on the current branch name to completely avoid merge conflicts. For example, if the current branch name is feature-foo, the corresponding lockfile name will be pnpm-lock.feature-foo.yaml instead of pnpm-lock.yaml. It is typically used in conjunction with the command line argument --merge-git-branch-lockfiles or by setting merge-git-branch-lockfiles-branch-pattern in the .npmrc file.

merge-git-branch-lockfiles-branch-pattern​

  • Default: null
  • Type: Array or null

This configuration matches the current branch name to determine whether to merge all git branch lockfile files. By default, you need to manually pass the --merge-git-branch-lockfiles command line parameter. This configuration allows this process to be automatically completed.

For instance:

merge-git-branch-lockfiles-branch-pattern[]=main
merge-git-branch-lockfiles-branch-pattern[]=release*

You may also exclude patterns using !.

peers-suffix-max-length​

Added in: v9.3.0

  • Default: 1000
  • Type: number

Max length of the peer IDs suffix added to dependency keys in the lockfile. If the suffix is longer, it is replaced with a hash.

Registry & Authentication Settings​

registry​

The base URL of the npm package registry (trailing slash included).

<scope>:registry​

The npm registry that should be used for packages of the specified scope. For example, setting @babel:registry=https://example.com/packages/npm/ will enforce that when you use pnpm add @babel/core, or any @babel scoped package, the package will be fetched from https://example.com/packages/npm instead of the default registry.

<URL>:_authToken​

Define the authentication bearer token to use when accessing the specified registry. For example:

//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

You may also use an environment variable. For example:

//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=${NPM_TOKEN}

Or you may just use an environment variable directly, without changing .npmrc at all:

npm_config_//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

<URL>:tokenHelper​

A token helper is an executable which outputs an auth token. This can be used in situations where the authToken is not a constant value but is something that refreshes regularly, where a script or other tool can use an existing refresh token to obtain a new access token.

The configuration for the path to the helper must be an absolute path, with no arguments. In order to be secure, it is only permitted to set this value in the user .npmrc. Otherwise a project could place a value in a project's local .npmrc and run arbitrary executables.

Setting a token helper for the default registry:

tokenHelper=/home/ivan/token-generator

Setting a token helper for the specified registry:

//registry.corp.com:tokenHelper=/home/ivan/token-generator

Request Settings​

ca​

  • Default: The npm CA certificate
  • Type: String, Array or null

The Certificate Authority signing certificate that is trusted for SSL connections to the registry. Values should be in PEM format (AKA "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)"). For example:

ca="-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nXXXX\nXXXX\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

Set to null to only allow known registrars, or to a specific CA cert to trust only that specific signing authority.

Multiple CAs can be trusted by specifying an array of certificates:

ca[]="..."
ca[]="..."

See also the strict-ssl config.

cafile​

  • Default: null
  • Type: path

A path to a file containing one or multiple Certificate Authority signing certificates. Similar to the ca setting, but allows for multiple CAs, as well as for the CA information to be stored in a file instead of being specified via CLI.

<URL>:cafile​

Define the path to a Certificate Authority file to use when accessing the specified registry. For example:

//registry.npmjs.org/:keyfile=client-cert.pem

cert​

  • Default: null
  • Type: String

A client certificate to pass when accessing the registry. Values should be in PEM format (AKA "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)"). For example:

cert="-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nXXXX\nXXXX\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

It is not the path to a certificate file.

<URL>:certfile​

Define the path to a certificate file to use when accessing the specified registry. For example:

//registry.npmjs.org/:certfile=server-cert.pem

key​

  • Default: null
  • Type: String

A client key to pass when accessing the registry. Values should be in PEM format (AKA "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)"). For example:

key="-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nXXXX\nXXXX\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----"

It is not the path to a key file (and there is no keyfile option).

This setting contains sensitive information. Don't write it to a local .npmrc file committed to the repository.

<URL>:keyfile​

Define the path to a client key file to use when accessing the specified registry. For example:

//registry.npmjs.org/:keyfile=server-key.pem

git-shallow-hosts​

  • Default: ['github.com', 'gist.github.com', 'gitlab.com', 'bitbucket.com', 'bitbucket.org']
  • Type: string[]

When fetching dependencies that are Git repositories, if the host is listed in this setting, pnpm will use shallow cloning to fetch only the needed commit, not all the history.

https-proxy​

  • Default: null
  • Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing HTTPS requests. If the HTTPS_PROXY, https_proxy, HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variables are set, their values will be used instead.

If your proxy URL contains a username and password, make sure to URL-encode them. For instance:

https-proxy=https://use%21r:pas%2As@my.proxy:1234/foo

Do not encode the colon (:) between the username and password.

http-proxy​

proxy​

  • Default: null
  • Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing http requests. If the HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variables are set, proxy settings will be honored by the underlying request library.

local-address​

  • Default: undefined
  • Type: IP Address

The IP address of the local interface to use when making connections to the npm registry.

maxsockets​

  • Default: network-concurrency x 3
  • Type: Number

The maximum number of connections to use per origin (protocol/host/port combination).

noproxy​

  • Default: null
  • Type: String

A comma-separated string of domain extensions that a proxy should not be used for.

strict-ssl​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

Whether or not to do SSL key validation when making requests to the registry via HTTPS.

See also the ca option.

network-concurrency​

  • Default: 16
  • Type: Number

Controls the maximum number of HTTP(S) requests to process simultaneously.

fetch-retries​

  • Default: 2
  • Type: Number

How many times to retry if pnpm fails to fetch from the registry.

fetch-retry-factor​

  • Default: 10
  • Type: Number

The exponential factor for retry backoff.

fetch-retry-mintimeout​

  • Default: 10000 (10 seconds)
  • Type: Number

The minimum (base) timeout for retrying requests.

fetch-retry-maxtimeout​

  • Default: 60000 (1 minute)
  • Type: Number

The maximum fallback timeout to ensure the retry factor does not make requests too long.

fetch-timeout​

  • Default: 60000 (1 minute)
  • Type: Number

The maximum amount of time to wait for HTTP requests to complete.

Peer Dependency Settings​

auto-install-peers​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When true, any missing non-optional peer dependencies are automatically installed.

Version Conflicts​

If there are conflicting version requirements for a peer dependency from different packages, pnpm will not install any version of the conflicting peer dependency automatically. Instead, a warning is printed. For example, if one dependency requires react@^16.0.0 and another requires react@^17.0.0, these requirements conflict, and no automatic installation will occur.

Conflict Resolution​

In case of a version conflict, you'll need to evaluate which version of the peer dependency to install yourself, or update the dependencies to align their peer dependency requirements.

dedupe-peer-dependents​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When this setting is set to true, packages with peer dependencies will be deduplicated after peers resolution.

For instance, let's say we have a workspace with two projects and both of them have webpack in their dependencies. webpack has esbuild in its optional peer dependencies, and one of the projects has esbuild in its dependencies. In this case, pnpm will link two instances of webpack to the node_modules/.pnpm directory: one with esbuild and another one without it:

node_modules
  .pnpm
    webpack@1.0.0_esbuild@1.0.0
    webpack@1.0.0
project1
  node_modules
    webpack -> ../../node_modules/.pnpm/webpack@1.0.0/node_modules/webpack
project2
  node_modules
    webpack -> ../../node_modules/.pnpm/webpack@1.0.0_esbuild@1.0.0/node_modules/webpack
    esbuild

This makes sense because webpack is used in two projects, and one of the projects doesn't have esbuild, so the two projects cannot share the same instance of webpack. However, this is not what most developers expect, especially since in a hoisted node_modules, there would only be one instance of webpack. Therefore, you may now use the dedupe-peer-dependents setting to deduplicate webpack when it has no conflicting peer dependencies (explanation at the end). In this case, if we set dedupe-peer-dependents to true, both projects will use the same webpack instance, which is the one that has esbuild resolved:

node_modules
  .pnpm
    webpack@1.0.0_esbuild@1.0.0
project1
  node_modules
    webpack -> ../../node_modules/.pnpm/webpack@1.0.0_esbuild@1.0.0/node_modules/webpack
project2
  node_modules
    webpack -> ../../node_modules/.pnpm/webpack@1.0.0_esbuild@1.0.0/node_modules/webpack
    esbuild

What are conflicting peer dependencies? By conflicting peer dependencies we mean a scenario like the following one:

node_modules
  .pnpm
    webpack@1.0.0_react@16.0.0_esbuild@1.0.0
    webpack@1.0.0_react@17.0.0
project1
  node_modules
    webpack -> ../../node_modules/.pnpm/webpack@1.0.0/node_modules/webpack
    react (v17)
project2
  node_modules
    webpack -> ../../node_modules/.pnpm/webpack@1.0.0_esbuild@1.0.0/node_modules/webpack
    esbuild
    react (v16)

In this case, we cannot dedupe webpack as webpack has react in its peer dependencies and react is resolved from two different versions in the context of the two projects.

strict-peer-dependencies​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, commands will fail if there is a missing or invalid peer dependency in the tree.

resolve-peers-from-workspace-root​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When enabled, dependencies of the root workspace project are used to resolve peer dependencies of any projects in the workspace. It is a useful feature as you can install your peer dependencies only in the root of the workspace, and you can be sure that all projects in the workspace use the same versions of the peer dependencies.

CLI Settings​

[no-]color​

  • Default: auto
  • Type: auto, always, never

Controls colors in the output.

  • auto - output uses colors when the standard output is a terminal or TTY.
  • always - ignore the difference between terminals and pipes. You’ll rarely want this; in most scenarios, if you want color codes in your redirected output, you can instead pass a --color flag to the pnpm command to force it to use color codes. The default setting is almost always what you’ll want.
  • never - turns off colors. This is the setting used by --no-color.

loglevel​

  • Default: info
  • Type: debug, info, warn, error

Any logs at or higher than the given level will be shown. You can instead pass --silent to turn off all output logs.

use-beta-cli​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

Experimental option that enables beta features of the CLI. This means that you may get some changes to the CLI functionality that are breaking changes, or potentially bugs.

recursive-install​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, the primary behaviour of pnpm install becomes that of pnpm install -r, meaning the install is performed on all workspace or subdirectory packages.

Else, pnpm install will exclusively build the package in the current directory.

engine-strict​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, pnpm will not install any package that claims to not be compatible with the current Node version.

Regardless of this configuration, installation will always fail if a project (not a dependency) specifies an incompatible version in its engines field.

npm-path​

  • Type: path

The location of the npm binary that pnpm uses for some actions, like publishing.

package-manager-strict​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

If this setting is disabled, pnpm will not fail if a different package manager is specified in the packageManager field of package.json. When enabled, only the package name is checked (since pnpm v9.2.0), so you can still run any version of pnpm regardless of the version specified in the packageManager field.

Alternatively, you can disable this setting by setting the COREPACK_ENABLE_STRICT environment variable to 0.

package-manager-strict-version​

Added in: v9.2.0

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When enabled, pnpm will fail if its version doesn't exactly match the version specified in the packageManager field of package.json.

manage-package-manager-versions​

Added in: v9.7.0

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When enabled, pnpm will automatically download and run the version of pnpm specified in the packageManager field of package.json. This is the same field used by Corepack. Example:

{
  "packageManager": "pnpm@9.3.0"
}

Build Settings​

ignore-scripts​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

Do not execute any scripts defined in the project package.json and its dependencies.

note

This flag does not prevent the execution of .pnpmfile.cjs

ignore-dep-scripts​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

Do not execute any scripts of the installed packages. Scripts of the projects are executed.

child-concurrency​

  • Default: 5
  • Type: Number

The maximum number of child processes to allocate simultaneously to build node_modules.

side-effects-cache​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

Use and cache the results of (pre/post)install hooks.

side-effects-cache-readonly​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

Only use the side effects cache if present, do not create it for new packages.

unsafe-perm​

  • Default: false IF running as root, ELSE true
  • Type: Boolean

Set to true to enable UID/GID switching when running package scripts. If set explicitly to false, then installing as a non-root user will fail.

node-options​

  • Default: NULL
  • Type: String

Options to pass through to Node.js via the NODE_OPTIONS environment variable. This does not impact how pnpm itself is executed but it does impact how lifecycle scripts are called.

Node.js Settings​

use-node-version​

  • Default: undefined
  • Type: semver

Specifies which exact Node.js version should be used for the project's runtime. pnpm will automatically install the specified version of Node.js and use it for running pnpm run commands or the pnpm node command.

This may be used instead of .nvmrc and nvm. Instead of the following .nvmrc file:

16.16.0

Use this .npmrc file:

use-node-version=16.16.0

This setting works only in a .npmrc file that is in the root of your workspace. If you need to specify a custom Node.js for a project in the workspace, use the pnpm.executionEnv.nodeVersion field of package.json instead.

node-version​

  • Default: the value returned by node -v, without the v prefix
  • Type: semver

The Node.js version to use when checking a package's engines setting.

If you want to prevent contributors of your project from adding new incompatible dependencies, use node-version and engine-strict in a .npmrc file at the root of the project:

node-version=12.22.0
engine-strict=true

This way, even if someone is using Node.js v16, they will not be able to install a new dependency that doesn't support Node.js v12.22.0.

node-mirror:<releaseDir>​

  • Default: https://nodejs.org/download/<releaseDir>/
  • Type: URL

Sets the base URL for downloading Node.js. The <releaseDir> portion of this setting can be any directory from https://nodejs.org/download: release, rc, nightly, v8-canary, etc.

Here is how pnpm may be configured to download Node.js from Node.js mirror in China:

node-mirror:release=https://npmmirror.com/mirrors/node/
node-mirror:rc=https://npmmirror.com/mirrors/node-rc/
node-mirror:nightly=https://npmmirror.com/mirrors/node-nightly/

Workspace Settings​

  • Default: false
  • Type: true, false, deep

If this is enabled, locally available packages are linked to node_modules instead of being downloaded from the registry. This is very convenient in a monorepo. If you need local packages to also be linked to subdependencies, you can use the deep setting.

Else, packages are downloaded and installed from the registry. However, workspace packages can still be linked by using the workspace: range protocol.

prefer-workspace-packages​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, local packages from the workspace are preferred over packages from the registry, even if there is a newer version of the package in the registry.

This setting is only useful if the workspace doesn't use save-workspace-protocol.

shared-workspace-lockfile​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, pnpm creates a single pnpm-lock.yaml file in the root of the workspace. This also means that all dependencies of workspace packages will be in a single node_modules (and get symlinked to their package node_modules folder for Node's module resolution).

Advantages of this option:

  • every dependency is a singleton
  • faster installations in a monorepo
  • fewer changes in code reviews as they are all in one file
note

Even though all the dependencies will be hard linked into the root node_modules, packages will have access only to those dependencies that are declared in their package.json, so pnpm's strictness is preserved. This is a result of the aforementioned symbolic linking.

save-workspace-protocol​

  • Default: rolling
  • Type: true, false, rolling

This setting controls how dependencies that are linked from the workspace are added to package.json.

If foo@1.0.0 is in the workspace and you run pnpm add foo in another project of the workspace, below is how foo will be added to the dependencies field. The save-prefix setting also influences how the spec is created.

save-workspace-protocolsave-prefixspec
false''1.0.0
false'~'~1.0.0
false'^'^1.0.0
true''workspace:1.0.0
true'~'workspace:~1.0.0
true'^'workspace:^1.0.0
rolling''workspace:*
rolling'~'workspace:~
rolling'^'workspace:^

include-workspace-root​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When executing commands recursively in a workspace, execute them on the root workspace project as well.

ignore-workspace-cycles​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When set to true, no workspace cycle warnings will be printed.

disallow-workspace-cycles​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When set to true, installation will fail if the workspace has cycles.

Other Settings​

save-prefix​

  • Default: '^'
  • Type: '^', '~', ''

Configure how versions of packages installed to a package.json file get prefixed.

For example, if a package has version 1.2.3, by default its version is set to ^1.2.3 which allows minor upgrades for that package, but after pnpm config set save-prefix='~' it would be set to ~1.2.3 which only allows patch upgrades.

This setting is ignored when the added package has a range specified. For instance, pnpm add foo@2 will set the version of foo in package.json to 2, regardless of the value of save-prefix.

tag​

  • Default: latest
  • Type: String

If you pnpm add a package and you don't provide a specific version, then it will install the package at the version registered under the tag from this setting.

This also sets the tag that is added to the package@version specified by the pnpm tag command if no explicit tag is given.

global-dir​

  • Default:
    • If the $XDG_DATA_HOME env variable is set, then $XDG_DATA_HOME/pnpm/global
    • On Windows: ~/AppData/Local/pnpm/global
    • On macOS: ~/Library/pnpm/global
    • On Linux: ~/.local/share/pnpm/global
  • Type: path

Specify a custom directory to store global packages.

global-bin-dir​

  • Default:
    • If the $XDG_DATA_HOME env variable is set, then $XDG_DATA_HOME/pnpm
    • On Windows: ~/AppData/Local/pnpm
    • On macOS: ~/Library/pnpm
    • On Linux: ~/.local/share/pnpm
  • Type: path

Allows to set the target directory for the bin files of globally installed packages.

state-dir​

  • Default:
    • If the $XDG_STATE_HOME env variable is set, then $XDG_STATE_HOME/pnpm
    • On Windows: ~/AppData/Local/pnpm-state
    • On macOS: ~/.pnpm-state
    • On Linux: ~/.local/state/pnpm
  • Type: path

The directory where pnpm creates the pnpm-state.json file that is currently used only by the update checker.

cache-dir​

  • Default:
    • If the $XDG_CACHE_HOME env variable is set, then $XDG_CACHE_HOME/pnpm
    • On Windows: ~/AppData/Local/pnpm-cache
    • On macOS: ~/Library/Caches/pnpm
    • On Linux: ~/.cache/pnpm
  • Type: path

The location of the cache (package metadata and dlx).

use-stderr​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When true, all the output is written to stderr.

update-notifier​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

Set to false to suppress the update notification when using an older version of pnpm than the latest.

prefer-symlinked-executables​

  • Default: true, when node-linker is set to hoisted and the system is POSIX
  • Type: Boolean

Create symlinks to executables in node_modules/.bin instead of command shims. This setting is ignored on Windows, where only command shims work.

ignore-compatibility-db​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

During installation the dependencies of some packages are automatically patched. If you want to disable this, set this config to false.

The patches are applied from Yarn's @yarnpkg/extensions package.

resolution-mode​

  • Default: highest (was lowest-direct from v8.0.0 to v8.6.12)
  • Type: highest, time-based, lowest-direct

When resolution-mode is set to time-based, dependencies will be resolved the following way:

  1. Direct dependencies will be resolved to their lowest versions. So if there is foo@^1.1.0 in the dependencies, then 1.1.0 will be installed.
  2. Subdependencies will be resolved from versions that were published before the last direct dependency was published.

With this resolution mode installations with warm cache are faster. It also reduces the chance of subdependency hijacking as subdependencies will be updated only if direct dependencies are updated.

This resolution mode works only with npm's full metadata. So it is slower in some scenarios. However, if you use Verdaccio v5.15.1 or newer, you may set the registry-supports-time-field setting to true, and it will be really fast.

When resolution-mode is set to lowest-direct, direct dependencies will be resolved to their lowest versions.

registry-supports-time-field​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

Set this to true if the registry that you are using returns the "time" field in the abbreviated metadata. As of now, only Verdaccio from v5.15.1 supports this.

extend-node-path​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When false, the NODE_PATH environment variable is not set in the command shims.

deploy-all-files​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When deploying a package or installing a local package, all files of the package are copied. By default, if the package has a "files" field in the package.json, then only the listed files and directories are copied.

dedupe-direct-deps​

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When set to true, dependencies that are already symlinked to the root node_modules directory of the workspace will not be symlinked to subproject node_modules directories.

dedupe-injected-deps​

  • Default: true
  • Type: Boolean

When this setting is enabled, dependencies that are injected will be symlinked from the workspace whenever possible. If the dependent project and the injected dependency reference the same peer dependencies, then it is not necessary to physically copy the injected dependency into the dependent's node_modules; a symlink is sufficient.