corepack

What is corepack?

Corepack is a tool that helps manage package managers in Node.js projects. It allows you to specify and use different versions of package managers like Yarn and pnpm, ensuring consistency across different environments.

What are corepack's main functionalities?

Enable Corepack

This command enables Corepack, allowing you to use it to manage package managers in your project.

corepack enable

Disable Corepack

This command disables Corepack, preventing it from managing package managers in your project.

corepack disable

Install a specific package manager version

This command installs and activates a specific version of a package manager (in this case, Yarn).

corepack prepare yarn@1.22.10 --activate

Check Corepack version

This command displays the current version of Corepack installed on your system.

corepack --version

Other packages similar to corepack

nvm

Node Version Manager (nvm) is a tool that allows you to manage multiple Node.js versions on a single machine. Unlike Corepack, which focuses on package managers, nvm focuses on managing Node.js versions.

volta

Volta is a JavaScript tool manager that allows you to manage Node.js versions and package managers. It provides a similar functionality to Corepack but also includes features for managing Node.js versions.

asdf

asdf is a version manager that can manage multiple runtime versions, including Node.js, Python, Ruby, and more. It is more versatile than Corepack, which is specifically focused on package managers.

README

corepack

Corepack is a zero-runtime-dependency Node.js script that acts as a bridge between Node.js projects and the package managers they are intended to be used with during development. In practical terms, Corepack lets you use Yarn, npm, and pnpm without having to install them.

How to Install

Default Installs

Corepack is distributed by default with all recent Node.js versions. Run corepack enable to install the required Yarn and pnpm binaries on your path.

Manual Installs

Install Corepack using npm

First uninstall your global Yarn and pnpm binaries (just leave npm). In general, you'd do this by running the following command:

npm uninstall -g yarn pnpm

# That should be enough, but if you installed Yarn without going through npm it might
# be more tedious - for example, you might need to run `brew uninstall yarn` as well.

Then install Corepack:

npm install -g corepack

We do acknowledge the irony and overhead of using npm to install Corepack, which is at least part of why the preferred option is to use the Corepack version that is distributed along with Node.js itself.

Update Corepack using npm

To install the latest version of Corepack, use:

npm install -g corepack@latest

If Corepack was installed on your system using a Node.js Windows Installer .msi package then you might need to remove it before attempting to install a different version of Corepack using npm. You can select the Modify option of the Node.js app settings to access the Windows Installer feature selection, and on the "corepack manager" feature of the Node.js .msi package by selecting "Entire feature will be unavailable". See Repair apps and programs in Windows for instructions on accessing the Windows apps page to modify settings.

Install Corepack from source

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Usage

When Building Packages

Just use your package managers as you usually would. Run yarn install in Yarn projects, pnpm install in pnpm projects, and npm in npm projects. Corepack will catch these calls, and depending on the situation:

• If the local project is configured for the package manager you're using, Corepack will download and cache the latest compatible version.

• If the local project is configured for a different package manager, Corepack will request you to run the command again using the right package manager - thus avoiding corruptions of your install artifacts.

• If the local project isn't configured for any package manager, Corepack will assume that you know what you're doing, and will use whatever package manager version has been pinned as "known good release". Check the relevant section for more details.

When Authoring Packages

Set your package's manager with the packageManager field in package.json:

{
  "packageManager": "yarn@3.2.3+sha224.953c8233f7a92884eee2de69a1b92d1f2ec1655e66d08071ba9a02fa"
}

Here, yarn is the name of the package manager, specified at version 3.2.3, along with the SHA-224 hash of this version for validation. packageManager@x.y.z is required. The hash is optional but strongly recommended as a security practice. Permitted values for the package manager are yarn, npm, and pnpm.

You can also provide a URL to a .js file (which will be interpreted as a CommonJS module) or a .tgz file (which will be interpreted as a package, and the "bin" field of the package.json will be used to determine which file to use in the archive).

{
  "packageManager": "yarn@https://registry.npmjs.org/@yarnpkg/cli-dist/-/cli-dist-3.2.3.tgz#sha224.16a0797d1710d1fb7ec40ab5c3801b68370a612a9b66ba117ad9924b"
}

devEngines.packageManager

When a devEngines.packageManager field is defined, and is an object containing a "name" field (can also optionally contain version and onFail fields), Corepack will use it to validate you're using a compatible package manager.

Depending on the value of devEngines.packageManager.onFail:

• if set to ignore, Corepack won't print any warning or error.
• if unset or set to error, Corepack will throw an error in case of a mismatch.
• if set to warn or some other value, Corepack will print a warning in case of mismatch.

If the top-level packageManager field is missing, Corepack will use the package manager defined in devEngines.packageManager – in which case you must provide a specific version in devEngines.packageManager.version, ideally with a hash, as explained in the previous section:

{
  "devEngines":{
    "packageManager": {
      "name": "yarn",
      "version": "3.2.3+sha224.953c8233f7a92884eee2de69a1b92d1f2ec1655e66d08071ba9a02fa"
    }
  }
}

Known Good Releases

When running Corepack within projects that don't list a supported package manager, it will default to a set of Known Good Releases.

If there is no Known Good Release for the requested package manager, Corepack looks up the npm registry for the latest available version and cache it for future use.

The Known Good Releases can be updated system-wide using corepack install -g. When Corepack downloads a new version of a given package manager on the same major line as the Known Good Release, it auto-updates it by default.

Offline Workflow

The utility commands detailed in the next section.

• Either you can use the network while building your container image, in which case you'll simply run corepack pack to make sure that your image includes the Last Known Good release for the specified package manager.

• Or you're publishing your project to a system where the network is unavailable, in which case you'll preemptively generate a package manager archive from your local computer (using corepack pack -o) before storing it somewhere your container will be able to access (for example within your repository). After that it'll just be a matter of running corepack install -g --cache-only <path/to/corepack.tgz> to setup the cache.

Utility Commands

corepack <binary name>[@<version>] [... args]

This meta-command runs the specified package manager in the local folder. You can use it to force an install to run with a given version, which can be useful when looking for regressions.

Note that those commands still check whether the local project is configured for the given package manager (ie you won't be able to run corepack yarn install on a project where the packageManager field references pnpm).

corepack cache clean

Clears the local COREPACK_HOME cache directory.

corepack cache clear

Clears the local COREPACK_HOME cache directory.

corepack enable [... name]

Option	Description
--install-directory	Add the shims to the specified location

This command will detect where Corepack is installed and will create shims next to it for each of the specified package managers (or all of them if the command is called without parameters). Note that the npm shims will not be installed unless explicitly requested, as npm is currently distributed with Node.js through other means.

If the file system where the corepack binary is located is read-only, this command will fail. A workaround is to add the binaries as alias in your shell configuration file (e.g. in ~/.bash_aliases):

alias yarn="corepack yarn"
alias yarnpkg="corepack yarnpkg"
alias pnpm="corepack pnpm"
alias pnpx="corepack pnpx"
alias npm="corepack npm"
alias npx="corepack npx"

On Windows PowerShell, you can add functions using the $PROFILE automatic variable:

echo "function yarn { corepack yarn `$args }" >> $PROFILE
echo "function yarnpkg { corepack yarnpkg `$args }" >> $PROFILE
echo "function pnpm { corepack pnpm `$args }" >> $PROFILE
echo "function pnpx { corepack pnpx `$args }" >> $PROFILE
echo "function npm { corepack npm `$args }" >> $PROFILE
echo "function npx { corepack npx `$args }" >> $PROFILE

corepack disable [... name]

Option	Description
--install-directory	Remove the shims to the specified location

This command will detect where Node.js is installed and will remove the shims from there.

corepack install

Download and install the package manager configured in the local project. This command doesn't change the global version used when running the package manager from outside the project (use the `-g,--global` flag if you wish to do this).

corepack install <-g,--global> [... name[@<version>]]

Install the selected package managers and install them on the system.

Package managers thus installed will be configured as the new default when calling their respective binaries outside of projects defining the packageManager field.

corepack pack [... name[@<version>]]

Option	Description
--json	Print the output folder rather than logs
-o,--output	Path where to generate the archive

Download the selected package managers and store them inside a tarball suitable for use with corepack install -g.

corepack use <name[@<version>]>

When run, this command will retrieve the latest release matching the provided descriptor, assign it to the project's package.json file, and automatically perform an install.

corepack up

Retrieve the latest available version for the current major release line of the package manager used in the local project, and update the project to use it.

Unlike corepack use this command doesn't take a package manager name nor a version range, as it will always select the latest available version from the range specified in devEngines.packageManager.version, or fallback to the same major line. Should you need to upgrade to a new major, use an explicit corepack use {name}@latest call (or simply corepack use {name}).

Environment Variables

• COREPACK_DEFAULT_TO_LATEST can be set to 0 in order to instruct Corepack not to lookup on the remote registry for the latest version of the selected package manager, and to not update the Last Known Good version when it downloads a new version of the same major line.

• COREPACK_ENABLE_AUTO_PIN can be set to 0 to prevent Corepack from updating the packageManager field when it detects that the local package doesn't list it. In general we recommend to always list a packageManager field (which you can easily set through corepack use [name]@[version]), as it ensures that your project installs are always deterministic.

• COREPACK_ENABLE_DOWNLOAD_PROMPT can be set to 0 to prevent Corepack showing the URL when it needs to download software, or can be set to 1 to have the URL shown. By default, when Corepack is called explicitly (e.g. corepack pnpm …), it is set to 0; when Corepack is called implicitly (e.g. pnpm …), it is set to 1. The default value cannot be overridden in a .corepack.env file. When standard input is a TTY and no CI environment is detected, Corepack will ask for user input before starting the download.

• COREPACK_ENABLE_UNSAFE_CUSTOM_URLS can be set to 1 to allow use of custom URLs to load a package manager known by Corepack (yarn, npm, and pnpm).

• COREPACK_ENABLE_NETWORK can be set to 0 to prevent Corepack from accessing the network (in which case you'll be responsible for hydrating the package manager versions that will be required for the projects you'll run, using corepack install -g --cache-only).

• COREPACK_ENABLE_STRICT can be set to 0 to prevent Corepack from throwing error if the package manager does not correspond to the one defined for the current project. This means that if a user is using the package manager specified in the current project, it will use the version specified by the project's packageManager field. But if the user is using other package manager different from the one specified for the current project, it will use the system-wide package manager version.

• COREPACK_ENABLE_PROJECT_SPEC can be set to 0 to prevent Corepack from checking if the package manager corresponds to the one defined for the current project. This means that it will always use the system-wide package manager regardless of what is being specified in the project's packageManager field.

• COREPACK_ENV_FILE can be set to 0 to request Corepack to not attempt to load .corepack.env; it can be set to a path to specify a different env file. Only keys that start with COREPACK_ and are not in the exception list (COREPACK_ENABLE_DOWNLOAD_PROMPT and COREPACK_ENV_FILE are ignored) will be taken into account. For Node.js 18.x users, this setting has no effect as that version doesn't support parsing of .env files.

• COREPACK_HOME can be set in order to define where Corepack should install the package managers. By default it is set to %LOCALAPPDATA%\node\corepack on Windows, and to $HOME/.cache/node/corepack everywhere else.

• COREPACK_ROOT has no functional impact on Corepack itself; it's automatically being set in your environment by Corepack when it shells out to the underlying package managers, so that they can feature-detect its presence (useful for commands like yarn init).

• COREPACK_NPM_REGISTRY sets the registry base url used when retrieving package managers from npm. Default value is https://registry.npmjs.org

• COREPACK_NPM_TOKEN sets a Bearer token authorization header when connecting to a npm type registry.

• COREPACK_NPM_USERNAME and COREPACK_NPM_PASSWORD to set a Basic authorization header when connecting to a npm type registry. Note that both environment variables are required and as plain text. If you want to send an empty password, explicitly set COREPACK_NPM_PASSWORD to an empty string.

• HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, and NO_PROXY are supported through proxy-from-env.

• COREPACK_INTEGRITY_KEYS can be set to an empty string or 0 to instruct Corepack to skip integrity checks, or to a JSON string containing custom keys.

Troubleshooting

The environment variable DEBUG can be set to corepack to enable additional debug logging.

Networking

There are a wide variety of networking issues that can occur while running corepack commands. Things to check:

• Make sure your network connection is active.
• Make sure the host for your request can be resolved by your DNS; try using curl [URL] (ipv4) and curl -6 [URL] (ipv6) from your shell.
• Check your proxy settings (see Environment Variables).

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License (MIT)

See LICENSE.md.

Changelog

0.32.0 (2025-02-28)

Features

• add limited support for devEngines (#643) (b456268)
• add more informative error when fetching latest stable fails (#644) (53b1fe7)
• add support for .corepack.env (#642) (9b95b46)
• update package manager versions (#617) (b83bb5e)

Bug Fixes

• do not resolve fallback descriptor when packageManager is defined (#632) (12e77e5)
• doc: fix link to proxy library (#636) (bae0839)
• replace explicit with specify as verb (#665) (351d86c)
• use: do not throw on invalid packageManager (#663) (4be72f6)