NPM 7 workspaces - how to install new package in workspace? - node.js

Question

If I have a NPM 7 workspace like this:
root
- submodule0
- submodule1
- submodule2
and I navigate to the submodule0 directory and run npm i somepackage it seems to "break" the workspace by creating a new package-lock.json in the submodule0 directory and installing all the dependencies there. In other words, it just does the old behavior that existed before I created the workspace.
I was hoping for a command similar to lerna where I can install a new package in submodule0 from the root. Something like:
npm i somepackage --scope submodule0
So far, the only workaround I can find is to edit the submodule0 package.json and add the somepackage manually. Then run npm i from the root. Obviously this is not ideal because I need to look up the #latest version, navigate to the subdirectory, open the package.json, etc. etc. as opposed to just typing one line in the root.

Answer 1

Workspace support for npm install and npm uninstall was added in npm v7.14.0. You can now just do:
npm i somepackage --workspace=submodule0
Uninstalling modules has been the biggest pain, so this is really exciting. The npm team seems to be slowly adding support to commands one by one. Follow updates here: https://github.com/npm/cli/blob/latest/CHANGELOG.md.

Answer 2

I'm also baffled with why npm workspaces has been released without this functionality.
My current workaround uses the add-dependencies package, which adds dependencies to a declared package.json file, whilst skipping the installation process.
npm i add-dependencies -g
Then, from top level of the monorepo, you can run:
npx add-dependencies ./submodule0/package.json somepackage && npm i
Hopefully a --workspace argument will be added to npm i soon to avoid this faff.

Answer 3

Please refer to the answer of mattwad above if you have NPM v7.14.0 or above
Original answer
I wasn't quite happy with the suggestions, but combined all of them to use it in a npm script without any dependencies:
{
"add": "npm install --package-lock-only --no-package-lock --prefix",
"postadd": "npm install"
}
This can be used like following: npm run add -- submodule0 somepackage

Answer 4

Add only into package.json
U can use this to install package only into package.json ( you don't need external dependencies )
npm i --prefix packages/test --save --package-lock-only --no-package-lock express
followed by npm i to install specified dependency into mono repository root node_modules
Lerna
Also can use lerna to use workspace name to install dependency into
package.json
{
"name": "mono",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"scripts": {
"wsi": "function workspaceinstall() { ( scope=$1; shift; lerna exec --scope \"$scope\" -- npm install --package-lock-only --no-package-lock \"$#\") }; workspaceinstall"
},
"author": "",
"license": "ISC",
"workspaces": {
"packages": [
"packages/**"
]
}
}
lerna.json
{
"version": "1.0.0",
"npmClient": "npm",
"packages": ["packages/**"]
}
npm run wsi [workspace name] [dependency name to install]
npm run wsi #workspace/test express
npm run wsi #workspace/test express --save-prod
npm run wsi #workspace/test #types/express --save-dev
wsi script only modify package.json for provided workspace name, to actually install dependencies u have to run npm i

Answer 5

In my case, which is similar to yours, I deleted all dependencies from all the inner projects, deleted also the package-lock.json, and installed everything in the root.
/
node_modules
package.json >> all dependencies
package-lock.json >> the only lock file that exists in the repo
/packages
/A
package.json >> no dependencies
-- no package-lock.json
/B
package.json >> no dependencies
-- no package-lock.json
/C
package.json >> no dependencies
-- no package-lock.json
This way, the node_modules folder ONLY resides on the root, and also the package-lock.json file is in the root.
If I allowed to have each project it's own package-lock.json I started seeing installation and runtime errors (because each project could have its own node_modules and its own version of a dependency).
This is the best way I see it works.

Answer 6

After trying to use the npm install with the --prefix --save --package-lock-only --no-package-lock options, npm always give the the error E404 - Not Found for my own packages of the monorepo that are not yet published to a registry. So even when trying to install external packages it fails because of my current dependencies in the package.json.
To workaround this issue I ended up with a mix of the previous suggestions:
"scripts": {
"add": "add-dependencies $npm_config_scope/package.json",
"postadd": "npm i",
},
"devDependencies": {
"add-dependencies": "^1.1.0"
},
Then I can do:
npm run add --scope=packages/app express
npm run add --scope=packages/core eslint jest -D
This works fine for installing external packages. To install my own packages that lives inside the monorepo, I still have to manually edit the package.json, otherwise I get the package not found error.