How does pnpm work?

[anonrig]

A small overview of how I interpret pnpm.

Disclaimer: This is a living document and might be wrong. Please comment on this issue and let's document it together.

Prepare environment

1. Create node_modules/.pacquet folder which is the virtual store path.

Add package

For a given package (example fastify) and a version (v1.0.0):

Variables:

• $STORE=node_modules/.pacquet
• $PKG=fastify
• $VERSION=1.0.0

Steps:

• Install package to $STORE/$PKG@$VERSION/node_modules/$PKG
• If there is a dependency of this package:
  1. Create an empty folder at path $STORE/fastify@$VERSION/node_modules/$PKG/node_modules
• Symlink node_modules/$PKG to STORE/$PKG@$VERSION/node_modules/$PKG
• For every dependency of $PKG:
  1. Set $PKG to dependency name
  2. Set $VERSION to `dependency version
  3. Run installation steps from the beginning
• Update package.json with appropriate version
  1. If package.json is not defined, create a file with only dependencies
• Update/create shrink file with appropriate ranges