pnpm

pnpm is fast and disk-efficient. It uses a Content Addressable Store and hard links to avoid duplicating packages. v9 (2025) adds Catalogs.

When to Use

• Disk Space: Saves GBs by storing one copy of lodash globally.
• Speed: Installation is instant if packages are already in the store.
• Monorepos: Excellent workspace support with strict isolation.

Quick Start

# Enable via Corepack
corepack enable
corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate

pnpm add next

Core Concepts

Content Addressable Store

~/.local/share/pnpm/store. All packages live here. Projects assume node_modules structure via symlinks.

Strict Resolution

Unlike npm/yarn (classic), pnpm does not flatten node_modules. You cannot access dependency-of-dependency unless you declare it.

Catalogs (v9)

Define version groups in pnpm-workspace.yaml. e.g. catalog:react-18 ensures all packages use exact same versions.

Best Practices (2025)

Do:

• Use CI Caching: pnpm is fast, but setup pnpm-store caching in GitHub Actions to make it instant.
• Use pnpm -r: Run commands recursively across the monorepo.
• Use only-allow: Add preinstall script to force team to use pnpm.

Don't:

• Don't shame hoist: If legacy tools break with symlinks, use shamefully-hoist=true in .npmrc as a temporary fix.

References

• pnpm Documentation