[Feature] Scripting Lerna

[jamiebuilds]

Any good CLI tool can be composed with others, so I would like to focus on that with Lerna.

Stuff like:

Making commands like lerna ls or lerna updated have easy to parse output.

$ lerna ls
package-1
package-2

# instead of:

$ lerna ls
Lerna v2.0.0-beta.6
Independent Versioning Mode
- package-1
- package-2

$ lerna updated
package-1
package-2

# instead of

$ lerna updated
Lerna v2.0.0-beta.6
Independent Versioning Mode
Checking for updated packages...

- package-1
- package-2

This will require moving debug information behind a --debug flag.

There's also lerna exec in #130

$ lerna exec pwd
/path/to/repo/packages/package-1
/path/to/repo/packages/package-2

I would also like to be able to expose different config-like information from lerna:

$ lerna get repo.version
2.0.0
# or
independent
$ lerna get paths.root
/path/to/repo
$ lerna get paths.packages
/path/to/repo/packages

This is all my ideas for now, but I'm definitely interested in anything that makes Lerna more scriptable.

[joscha]

Maybe we could adapt the git --porcelain flag for that. That way current scripts would continue working, just the output without --porcelain would allow composition and hide all debug output.

[jpnelson]

I'd prefer @joscha 's suggestion if it's the difference between a major version and a minor version

[jamiebuilds]

What would break with current scripts? Are people using the output of Lerna already?

[joscha]

can't speak for other people, but we do:

# Get all packages so we now which ones to iterate through
ALL_PACKAGES=$($LERNA_LOC exec pwd\
| sed 1,2d)

That's only one example - we had to write a script that uses npm link on packages, because the workaround with requiring the index.js doesn't work for packages that are mainly CSS/LESS/images. Basically the same problem as #11 and #263.

[factoidforrest]

the --json flag covers this use case now, but unfortunately there isn't quite enough data in there. It would be nice if ls also listed the package path

[evocateur]

@light24bulbs A lot of scriptable options been implemented recently, but not released yet. Trying to finish #1091 first.

[JamesHenry]

Hi Folks 👋

In light of its age, and in order to allow our small team to focus on what matters most to Lerna v6 users in late 2022, I'm going to close this one. If you have any requests that could enhance your usage of Lerna 6, then please do let us know by opening a new discussion (for a feature) or issue (for a bug report) with as much context as possible.

You can also check out our published roadmap for Lerna v7 here: #3410

Many thanks 🙏