pnpm add fails to add workspace package with pre-release version number

[xenobytezero]

pnpm version: 7.11

Code to reproduce the issue:

https://github.com/xenobytezero/bug-pnpm-install-pre-workspace.git

Steps

1. pnpm -F @pkg/target add @pkg/public-patch
2. pnpm -F @pkg/target add @pkg/public-pre

Expected behavior:

Both packages are detected as workspace packages and added to @pkg/target package.json with workspace:* versions

Actual behavior:

The @pkg/public-patch package adds correctly, but the @pkg/public-pre package fails as it attempts to bypass workspace packages and go to the online registry

C:\Projects\github-bugs\pnpm-install-workspace>pnpm -F @pkg/target add @pkg/public-pre  
 ERR_PNPM_FETCH_404  GET https://registry.npmjs.org/@pkg%2Fpublic-pre: Not Found - 404

Additional information:

When testing, the only difference I can see is that @pkg/public-pre has a version number with a pre-release version in the package.json (2.3.4-next.4) wheas the other package has a simple Major.Minor.Patch version (2.3.4)

• node -v prints: 16.5.0
• Windows, macOS, or Linux?: Windows

[await-ovo]

Currently pnpm try to resolve local workspace package which doest specify version range will ignore pre-release version:
https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/blob/main/resolving/npm-resolver/src/index.ts#L293

https://github.com/npm/node-semver#functions

For me, it's hard to say if this is a bug or not, after all, installing from npm registry is also downloading the latest tag version.

I also found that it is possible to write the dependencies directly in package.json and install them:

// packages/internal/target/package.json
  "dependencies": {
    "@pkg/public-pre": "workspace:*"
  }

$ pnpm i                  
Scope: all 4 workspace projects

dependencies:
+ @pkg/public-pre 2.3.4-next.4 <- ../../public/public-pre

Done in 1.3s

It seems that the add and install behavior is a bit inconsistent, so I feel that we can try to resolve the local package when adding if the remote package does not exist.