tech support wiki

Appearance

pnpm link ​

The docs page for the pnpm link command does a poor job of explaining it. Here's my attempt at understanding the very useful command pnpm link is.

Full documentation on pnpm.io

preface ​

This command is used to link a local copy of a package to another project, so you can get instant changes reflected in the other project, without publishing the package to npm or going through github.

For super small, one/two-time modifications, check out pnpm patch. It is easier, faster, and might be what you're looking for. However, if you want to, contribute your changes of the package back to your repo, or are developing 2 packages at the same time (library + project), pnpm link is likely the right answer.

If you're developing more packages in an ecosystem, consider using a pnpm monorepo. It is better for larger projects

the example ​

In my example, I am going to:

  • link my fork of sveltekit-adapter-iis, in D:/coding/svelte/fork-sveltekit-adapter-iis
  • into my project pursiny-sveltekit, in D:/coding/svelte/pursiny-sveltekit

the linked package ​

cd into D:/coding/svelte/fork-sveltekit-adapter-iis, and run:

bash
pnpm link --global

This makes it available to the current global pnpm store The name attribute in this package's package.json is sveltekit-adapter-iis

the consumer ​

cd into D:/coding/svelte/pursiny-sveltekit,

Make sure to remove all previously installed packages with the same name beforehand with pnpm rm <package name>, like pnpm rm sveltekit-adapter-iis

and run:

bash
pnpm link --global sveltekit-adapter-iis

now it will be linked

appearing in package.json ​

What's really confusing is that after a package is sucessfully linked, it does not show up as a dependecny in package.json. It still works, but for ease of mind or other reasons you might want to add it to package.json.

If you add the pacakge like this: pnpm add -D github:KraXen72/sveltekit-adapter-iis, while it is linked, the link will have precedence over github, but others can install the dependency from github. More info

explicitly showing it is linked ​

running pnpm add -D ../fork-sveltekit-adapter-iis or pnpm add -D D:\coding\svelte\fork-sveltekit-adapter-iis will create the pnpm link, and add it to package.json. More info