Allow "pnpm add" command to generate "workspace:*" when adding a workspace dependency

[Mufasa]

I have been using npm for many years and have now started to move over to use pnpm. My initial feedback on pnpm is that it is indeed far superior to npm and I absolutely love it. However, I have spotted a strange issue which I have described below.

When I add a workspace dependency using pnpm add myWorkspaceLibA --workspace --filter myWorkspaceLibB, pnpm generates this in myWorkspaceLibB's package.json file:

"dependencies": {
    ...
    "myWorkspaceLibA": "workspace:^",
    ...
  },

It also generates this in the root pnpm-lock.yaml file:

  packages/myWorkspaceLibB:
    dependencies:
      'myWorkspaceLibA':
        specifier: workspace:^
        version: link:../myWorkspaceLibA

From the various articles and videos that I have seen on this, I understand that after running the pnpm add command I should change the package.json entry in myWorkspaceLibB to:

"dependencies": {
    ...
    "myWorkspaceLibA": "workspace:*",
    ...
  },

in order to ensure that it always picks up the latest version of myWorkspaceLibA in my monorepo.

However, this leaves the pnpm-lock.yaml file inconsistent with the package.json file.

I have the following questions on this:

1. Does this matter (i.e. will this cause some unexpected behaviour in some future commands that I may run)?
2. Should I also update the pnpm-lock.yaml file to make it consistent with the package.json file?

My gut feeling tells me that it is not a good idea for me to be manually changing the pnpm-lock.yaml file. I would therefore like to suggest that the pnpm add command be enhanced in some way so that it automagically sets workspace:* in both the package.json and pnpm-lock.yaml files.

Is this a reasonable request or have I misunderstood something here?

[eq-saini-g]

@Mufasa
Have you tried using the --filter option?

eg: if you have 2 packages in your workspace named @my-monorepo/pkg-1 and @my-monorepo/pkg-2. Then you can do

pnpm --filter @my-monorepo/pkg-1 add @my-monorepo/pkg-2

to add pkg-2 as a dependency in pkg-1

[Mufasa]

I am indeed using the --filter option as I indicated in pnpm add myWorkspaceLibA --workspace --filter myWorkspaceLibB.

The problem is that it adds the dependancy as "workspace:^" instead of "workspace:*"

[eq-saini-g]

Oops!, Silly me. Didn't notice that one earlier.
I'm not aware of the difference between workspace:^ and workspace:*. Can you please clarify that for me?

[Mufasa]

workspace:~ will pickup changes to the patch version but will not pickup any changes to the major or minor versions.

workspace:^ will pickup changes to the minor or patch versions but will not pickup a change to the major version.

workspace:* will pickup changes to the major, minor, or patch versions.

[eq-saini-g]

Maybe using the rolling option could be of any help - https://pnpm.io/npmrc#save-workspace-protocol

I haven't tried this for my self, so can't say for sure. Please let me know if this works out for you.

[Mufasa]

It does not quite meet my needs - I have converted this discussion into an issue where you can find a bit more detail on this here - #6770