pnpm install recursive fails with bin in sub package that must be compiled first

[hgossler]

pnpm version:

v3.2.0

Code to reproduce the issue:

See https://github.com/hgossler/pnpm-issue-1801 and follow the steps in the readme. This fails because pnpm attempts to chmod the bin in sub-package1 before the prepare script is run.

Expected behavior:

pnpm i -r should work.

Actual behavior:

 ERROR  ENOENT: no such file or directory, chmod '... /pnpm-issue-2/packages/sub-package2/node_modules/sub-package1/dist/script.js'

It works if you run

cd packages/sub-package1
pnpm i

first.

Additional information:

• node -v prints: v11.10.1
• Windows, OS X, or Linux?: macOS

[LukasHechenberger]

Any progress on this one? Or is there a workaround?

[zkochan]

No, this is not an easy to fix issue.

A workaround would be to create a bin file that just requires the compiled bin file. That's how it is done in pnpm repo as well: https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/blob/main/packages/pnpm/bin/pnpm.cjs

[LukasHechenberger]

Okay, that’s not possible in my case. I did work around it by touching the bin file in a preinstall script. Works fine as far as I can tell by now... Thanks for the incredibly fast support!

[develar]

So, any project that uses Typescript and monorepo is not able to use PNPM without some kind of workaround. Hmm....

 ERROR  ENOENT: no such file or directory, chmod '/home/circleci/project/test/node_modules/electron-builder/out/cli/cli.js'

[develar]

And no way to ask to not create bin links... #459

[zkochan]

So, any project that uses Typescript and monorepo is not able to use PNPM without some kind of workaround.

not any project. This is not such a frequent scenario. It only fails if a workspace project with a compiled bin file is used in a postinstall script of another workspace project.

[develar]

not any project. This is not such a frequent scenario. It only fails if a workspace project with a compiled bin file is used in a postinstall script of another workspace project.

No, in my case no postinstall. Just regular bin file that not referenced in postinstall script. You can find example in electron-userland/electron-builder#5710 (branch tsc-pnpm).

"electron-builder": "./out/cli/cli.js",
 "install-app-deps": "./out/cli/install-app-deps.js"

As workaround, I added plain JS files.

[zkochan]

oh, right. You are correct. If it is not used in a postinstall, there is a workaround to put regular js file wrappers. We do that in the pnpm monorepo as well: https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/tree/main/packages/pnpm/bin

Maybe as a fast workaround, we could make pnpm create the command shims even if the target does not exist yet.

[develar]

Correction — looks like indeed "not any project." In my project there is a dependency on electron-builder. test depends on electron-builder and looks like that PNPM tries to create bin links because of that. But were no issues in case of Yarn 2.

[kashpatel]

This was a problem in our project monorepo. As a workaround, I started committing built js file bin command point to.

[estrattonbailey]

In case it's helpful, I did similar in my Github workflows.

      - name: pnpm - output bin stubs
        run: echo "#! /usr/bin/env node" > ./packages/presta/cli.js
      - name: pnpm - install
        run: pnpm install

[Akryum]

Still having this issue if a workspace in my monorepo has a bin file that doesn't exist yet (and I don't have any postinstall scripts):
https://github.com/Akryum/peeky/runs/4429592483?check_suite_focus=true
https://github.com/Akryum/peeky/blob/fec6b43830ba3d7821c0de7b6327fbc755b7aa37/packages/peeky-cli/package.json#L20

Using PNPM 6.23.1

---

Also reproduced when cloning the repo and executing pnpm i, which is rather annoying 😅

[Akryum]

Ugly workaround in the meantime:

akryum@Square:~/Projects/peeky$ npm run fix-pnpm-bin

> peeky-mono-repo@0.5.2 fix-pnpm-bin
> mkdir ./packages/peeky-cli/dist && touch ./packages/peeky-cli/dist/bin.js

akryum@Square:~/Projects/peeky$ pnpm i
Scope: all 10 workspace projects
Lockfile is up-to-date, resolution step is skipped
Packages: +957
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Progress: resolved 957, reused 957, downloaded 0, added 0, done
node_modules/.pnpm/core-js-pure@3.19.3/node_modules/core-js-pure: Running postinstall script, done in 41ms
node_modules/.pnpm/@apollo+protobufjs@1.2.2/node_modules/@apollo/protobufjs: Running postinstall script, done in 38ms
node_modules/.pnpm/vue-demi@0.12.1_vue@3.2.24/node_modules/vue-demi: Running postinstall script, done in 68ms
node_modules/.pnpm/nodemon@2.0.15/node_modules/nodemon: Running postinstall script, done in 49ms
node_modules/.pnpm/esbuild@0.13.15/node_modules/esbuild: Running postinstall script, done in 46ms
akryum@Square:~/Projects/peeky$

[yankeeinlondon]

also still present in 6.24.3

[zkochan]

Installation doesn't fail since v6.24.4, if the target bin doesn't exist. Just a warning is printed. This was change in this PR: #4172

[AlexAegis]

Could the "bin linking" step be re-tried for the failed links after the last install hook finished? (If a postinstall script happened to build it, it would be there)

Or to expose it as cli, so we could plug it in ourselves as a postbuild step too.

[trappar]

I just ran into this issue and submitted a PR for the underlying library (see above) which would fix it 🤞🏻

[kenbankspeng]

Having this issue on pnpm 8.6.2 and it prevents me from using pnpm on any NextJS 13 project.

[eckdanny]

Me:

1. workspace root depends on a workspace pkg that has a compile step to produce a bin
2. Uh Oh! I have a chicken-and-egg problem that is confounding CI
3. found this thread, looked at diff in fix: link local bins created by postinstall scripts #6728 (specifically here)
4. use a prepare lifecycle script in the bin-producing pkg
5. ✅ all good

FWIW: My bin-producing pkg is written in typescript and my workaround before adding a prepare, was to point the <pkgJson>#bin: at index.ts, and add ts-node as devDependency to workspace root. This was useful for developing the pkg, but prepare is more idiomatic solution for satisfying the chicken-and-egg linking problem.

[webpro]

I jotted down a scrap about this: https://www.webpro.nl/scraps/compiled-bin-in-typescript-monorepo. Maybe it's helpful, please let me know it contains errors (it worked for me).