- Assertion testing
- Asynchronous context tracking
- Async hooks
- Buffer
- C++ addons
- C/C++ addons with Node-API
- C++ embedder API
- Child processes
- Cluster
- Command-line options
- Console
- Corepack
- Crypto
- Debugger
- Deprecated APIs
- Diagnostics Channel
- DNS
- Domain
- Errors
- Events
- File system
- Globals
- HTTP
- HTTP/2
- HTTPS
- Inspector
- Internationalization
- Modules: CommonJS modules
- Modules: ECMAScript modules
- Modules:
node:module
API - Modules: Packages
- Net
- OS
- Path
- Performance hooks
- Permissions
- Process
- Punycode
- Query strings
- Readline
- REPL
- Report
- Single executable applications
- Stream
- String decoder
- Test runner
- Timers
- TLS/SSL
- Trace events
- TTY
- UDP/datagram
- URL
- Utilities
- V8
- VM
- WASI
- Web Crypto API
- Web Streams API
- Worker threads
- Zlib
Node.js v21.0.0-nightly202308036ad8318373 documentation
- Node.js v21.0.0-nightly202308036ad8318373
- ► Table of contents
-
►
Index
- Assertion testing
- Asynchronous context tracking
- Async hooks
- Buffer
- C++ addons
- C/C++ addons with Node-API
- C++ embedder API
- Child processes
- Cluster
- Command-line options
- Console
- Corepack
- Crypto
- Debugger
- Deprecated APIs
- Diagnostics Channel
- DNS
- Domain
- Errors
- Events
- File system
- Globals
- HTTP
- HTTP/2
- HTTPS
- Inspector
- Internationalization
- Modules: CommonJS modules
- Modules: ECMAScript modules
- Modules:
node:module
API - Modules: Packages
- Net
- OS
- Path
- Performance hooks
- Permissions
- Process
- Punycode
- Query strings
- Readline
- REPL
- Report
- Single executable applications
- Stream
- String decoder
- Test runner
- Timers
- TLS/SSL
- Trace events
- TTY
- UDP/datagram
- URL
- Utilities
- V8
- VM
- WASI
- Web Crypto API
- Web Streams API
- Worker threads
- Zlib
- ► Other versions
- ► Options
Table of contents
Corepack#
Corepack is an experimental tool to help with managing versions of your package managers. It exposes binary proxies for each supported package manager that, when called, will identify whatever package manager is configured for the current project, transparently install it if needed, and finally run it without requiring explicit user interactions.
This feature simplifies two core workflows:
-
It eases new contributor onboarding, since they won't have to follow system-specific installation processes anymore just to have the package manager you want them to.
-
It allows you to ensure that everyone in your team will use exactly the package manager version you intend them to, without them having to manually synchronize it each time you need to make an update.
Workflows#
Enabling the feature#
Due to its experimental status, Corepack currently needs to be explicitly
enabled to have any effect. To do that, run corepack enable
, which
will set up the symlinks in your environment next to the node
binary
(and overwrite the existing symlinks if necessary).
From this point forward, any call to the supported binaries will work
without further setup. Should you experience a problem, run
corepack disable
to remove the proxies from your system (and consider
opening an issue on the Corepack repository to let us know).
Configuring a package#
The Corepack proxies will find the closest package.json
file in your
current directory hierarchy to extract its "packageManager"
property.
If the value corresponds to a supported package manager, Corepack will make sure that all calls to the relevant binaries are run against the requested version, downloading it on demand if needed, and aborting if it cannot be successfully retrieved.
Upgrading the global versions#
When running outside of an existing project (for example when running
yarn init
), Corepack will by default use predefined versions roughly
corresponding to the latest stable releases from each tool. Those versions can
be overridden by running the corepack prepare
command along with the
package manager version you wish to set:
corepack prepare [email protected] --activate
Alternately, a tag or range may be used:
corepack prepare pnpm@latest --activate
corepack prepare yarn@stable --activate
Offline workflow#
Many production environments don't have network access. Since Corepack
usually downloads the package manager releases straight from their registries,
it can conflict with such environments. To avoid that happening, call the
corepack prepare
command while you still have network access (typically at
the same time you're preparing your deploy image). This will ensure that the
required package managers are available even without network access.
The prepare
command has various flags. Consult the detailed
Corepack documentation for more information.
Supported package managers#
The following binaries are provided through Corepack:
Package manager | Binary names |
---|---|
Yarn | yarn , yarnpkg |
pnpm | pnpm , pnpx |
Common questions#
How does Corepack interact with npm?#
While Corepack could support npm like any other package manager, its shims aren't enabled by default. This has a few consequences:
-
It's always possible to run a
npm
command within a project configured to be used with another package manager, since Corepack cannot intercept it. -
While
npm
is a valid option in the"packageManager"
property, the lack of shim will cause the global npm to be used.
Running npm install -g yarn
doesn't work#
npm prevents accidentally overriding the Corepack binaries when doing a global install. To avoid this problem, consider one of the following options:
-
Don't run this command; Corepack will provide the package manager binaries anyway and will ensure that the requested versions are always available, so installing the package managers explicitly isn't needed.
-
Add the
--force
flag tonpm install
; this will tell npm that it's fine to override binaries, but you'll erase the Corepack ones in the process. (Runcorepack enable
to add them back.)