cirno

Cirno

Zero-Install Package Manager for Node.js.

Usage

cirno init

• -f, --force: overwrite existing environment.

Initialize a new Cirno environment.

cirno import <src>

Import an application from a local path or URL.

Arguments after -- will be passed to yarn.

cirno export <id> <dest>

Export an application (or backup) to a local path.

cirno clone <id>

Clone an application (or backup).

cirno remove <id>

Remove an application (or backup).

cirno backup <id>

Backup an application. See Backup Timeline for more information.

cirno restore <id>

Restore to a backup. See Backup Timeline for more information.

cirno list

• --json: output as JSON.

List all applications in the environment.

cirno yarn <id>

Execute yarn in an application.

Arguments after -- will be passed to yarn.

cirno gc

Remove unused packages from the cache.

Automatically executed by cirno remove.

Concepts

Application

An application is a Node.js workspace. It may contain sub-workspaces, but they all share the same lockfile.

Applications can be imported via cirno import and exported via cirno export. They can also be cloned and removed.

Bundle

A bundle is a zip file containing a zero-install application.

cirno export will pack all the dependencies and the package manager of an application so that installation requires no network connection.

Shared Cache

Every bundle supports zero-install, which means that import-ing a bundle needs no extra network requests other than downloading the bundle itself.

On the other hand, local applications may have many duplicated dependencies. To reduce the disk usage, Cirno manages a shared cache for all applications.

When you import an application, Cirno will move all the dependencies to the shared cache. When you export an application, Cirno will copy the dependencies from the shared cache to the bundle.

Finally, Cirno support garbage collection for the shared cache. You can use cirno gc to remove unused packages from the cache. This will allow Cirno to have even less disk usage than Yarn or pnpm stores.

Backup Timeline

Cirno supports backup and restore. You can use cirno backup to create a backup of an application, and use cirno restore to restore an application to a backup.

For example:

$ cirno backup A
> Successfully created a backup instance B.
$ cirno backup A
> Successfully created a backup instance C.
$ cirno backup A
> Successfully created a backup instance D.

This will create four instances with the following timeline:

B -> C -> D -> A

Instance A is called a head instance, while instances B, C, D are called the base instances. These two types of instances have different behaviors:

• You can only backup a head instance. For example, the following command will fail:

  $ cirno backup D
  > Cannot backup a base instance.
  

  Despite this, you can still clone a backup instance.

• You can only restore to backup instance. For example, the following command will fail:

  $ cirno restore A
  > Cannot restore to a head instance.
  

• When you restore to a backup instance, all the subsequent instances will be removed. For example, if you restore to instance C, the timeline will be:

  B -> C
  

  In this case, C will become the head instance on which you can make further backups.

• When you remove an instance, the next instance in the timeline will be linked to the previous instance. For example, if you remove instance C, the timeline will be:

  B -> D -> A
  

  In particular, if you remove the head instance, the last backup instance will become the head instance.