Switch package manager to pnpm or npm

[flevi29]

A lot of high profile repositories these days use pnpm, for instance:

• https://github.com/sveltejs/svelte
• https://github.com/vitejs/vite
• https://github.com/vuejs/core

I was looking into upgrading Yarn, but it looks like to make full use of the latest Yarn, we'd have to make some trade-offs and non-standard changes.

• they don't have a standard way to use Yarn with GitHub actions
• to make full use of the latest version we'd have to use their "Plug'n'Play" feature, which diverges way too much from how Node.js has always handled dependencies (and ESM support is still (in Anum Domini 2025) experimental this way)
  • and most importantly every IDE needs an additional extension and additional setup to work with it

Instead I will be switching to pnpm, and I will do so for every JS/TS repository in the meilisearch org, if you'll allow me.

[curquiza]

Hello, I saw discussion here, but I answer in this issue for an easier traceability with community: I'm not sure this change is worth it. We would like to keep what is working and yarn is not deprecated and still widely used. We want to avoid pain and work in order to focus on the most critical things. I'm afraid of the new pains this huge change could bring.

However I agree with you @flevi29, updating yarn could be a good move

Would love to have the opinion of the community of this

[flevi29]

I'm not so sure about this huge pain and work. I detailed in the PR in my last comment that this will not be the case because of how corepack works, that's literally the whole point of corepack. EDIT: Sorry if I'm being rude.

Anyhow, the way I see it, to upgrade you'll still need to change actions/setup-node@v4 to enable corepack instead of installing yarn globally.
Read on Yarn's page more: https://yarnpkg.com/getting-started/install

[flevi29]

Alright fair enough, switching to pnpm might be a little much, I'll open another issue for updating yarn.

[flevi29]

Closed in favour of #1664.

[flevi29]

Updated description.

[Strift]

I know @curquiza and @brunoocasali have some concerns, so I'll share my feedback regarding moving to PNPM here.

Why migrate from Yarn?

First of all, the yarn version we are using has entered maintenance mode. Eventually it will reach EOL and we will have to migrate to a new Yarn version. The different versions of Yarn have different ways to resolve dependencies, create different lockfiles, and don't interoperate particularly well in my experience. So a migration will be needed at some point anyway.

Why PNPM?

Generally speaking, I'm in favor of moving to PNPM because it makes the lives of maintainers easier. As Flevi pointed out, it's now a common tool for front-end libraries, and I have more experience with it than I do with Yarn.

My main selling points for PNPM are:

• Faster installation (helps with PR reviews and speeds up CIs)
• I often ran into issues when installing deps. It will also make it easier for external contributors to use PNPM IMO
• Easier mono-repo handling in my experience
• Better disk space utilization (it's a bonus, but it's enjoyable)

---

I'm not saying this is a priority, but it would be a welcome improvement to our workflows.

[curquiza]

Thanks @Strift for your point of view
Can we have the limit and risks migrating to pnpm?

[brunoocasali]

Knowing that our yarn version is not maintained anymore, why not just use the good ol' npm?

[flevi29]

That's also an option. I personally don't mind it. I'm not sure how much it would slow down CI though.

I can open another PR which switches to npm, we'll see the difference then.

[flevi29]

Alright here it is #1899. It does miss some bells and whistles, and the lock files are ginormous messes, but it is simpler and available out of the box.