Version: 6.x

.npmrc

pnpm gets its configuration from the command line, environment variables, and .npmrc files.

The pnpm config command can be used to update and edit the contents of the user and global .npmrc files.

The four relevant files are:

per-project configuration file (/path/to/my/project/.npmrc)
per-workspace configuration file (the directory that contains the pnpm-workspace.yaml file)
per-user configuration file (~/.npmrc)
global configuration file (/etc/npmrc)

All .npmrc files are an INI-formatted list of key = value parameters.

Dependency Hoisting Settings#

hoist#

Added in: v4.0.0

Default: true
Type: boolean

When true, all dependencies are hoisted to node_modules/.pnpm. This makes unlisted dependencies accessible to all packages inside node_modules.

hoist-pattern#

Added in: v4.0.0

Default: ['*']
Type: string[]

Tells pnpm which packages should be hoisted to node_modules/.pnpm. By default, all packages are hoisted - however, if you know that only some flawed packages have phantom dependencies, you can use this option to exclusively hoist the phantom dependencies (recommended).

For instance:

hoist-pattern[]=*eslint*hoist-pattern[]=*babel*

public-hoist-pattern#

Added in: v5.2.0

Default: ['*types*', '*eslint*', '@prettier/plugin-*', '*prettier-plugin-*']
Type: string[]

Unlike hoist-pattern, which hoists dependencies to a hidden modules directory inside the virtual store, public-hoist-pattern hoists dependencies matching the pattern to the root modules directory. Hoisting to the root modules directory means that application code will have access to phantom dependencies, even if they modify the resolution strategy improperly.

This setting is useful when dealing with some flawed pluggable tools that don't resolve dependencies properly.

For instance:

public-hoist-pattern[]=*plugin*

Note: Setting shamefully-hoist to true is the same as setting public-hoist-pattern to *.

shamefully-hoist#

Added in: v1.34.0 as shamefully-flatten, renamed in v4.0.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean

By default, pnpm creates a semistrict node_modules, meaning dependencies have access to undeclared dependencies but modules outside of node_modules do not. With this layout, most of the packages in the ecosystem work with no issues. However, if some tooling only works when the hoisted dependencies are in the root of node_modules, you can set this to true to hoist them for you.

Node-Modules Settings#

store-dir#

Added in: v4.2.0 as store

Default: ~/.pnpm-store
Type: path

The location where all the packages are saved on the disk.

The store should be always on the same disk on which installation is happening, so there will be one store per disk. If there is a home directory on the current disk, then the store is created in <home dir>/.pnpm-store. If there is no home on the disk, then the store is created at the root of the filesystem. For example, if installation is happening on a filesystem mounted at /mnt, then the store will be created at /mnt/.pnpm-store. The same goes for Windows systems.

It is possible to set a store from a different disk but in that case pnpm will copy packages from the store instead of hard-linking them, as hard links are only possible on the same filesystem.

modules-dir#

Added in: v4.14.0

Default: node_modules
Type: path

The directory in which dependencies will be installed (instead of node_modules).

node-linker#

Added in: v5.9.0

Default: undefined
Type: undefined, pnp

Defines what linker should be used for installing Node packages. By default, pnpm creates a linked modules directory, but the Plug'n'Play build and resolution strategy is supported as well. Plug'n'Play is an innovative strategy for Node that is used by Yarn.

It is recommended to also set symlink setting to false when using pnp as your linker.

symlink#

Added in: v5.9.0

Default: true
Type: Boolean

When symlink is set to false, pnpm creates a virtual store directory without any symlinks. It is a useful setting together with node-linker=pnp.

enable-modules-dir#

Added in: v5.15.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean

When false, pnpm will not write any files to the modules directory (node_modules). This is useful for when the modules directory is mounted with filesystem in userspace (FUSE). There is an experimental CLI that allows you to mount a modules directory with FUSE: @pnpm/mount-modules.

virtual-store-dir#

Added in: v4.1.0

Default: node_modules/.pnpm
Types: path

The directory with links to the store. All direct and indirect dependencies of the project are linked into this directory.

This is a useful setting that can solve issues with long paths on Windows. If you have some dependencies with very long paths, you can select a virtual store in the root of your drive (for instance C:\my-project-store).

Or you can set the virtual store to .pnpm and add it to .gitignore. This will make stacktraces cleaner as paths to dependencies will be one directory higher.

NOTE: the virtual store cannot be shared between several projects. Every project should have its own virtual store (except for in workspaces where the root is shared).

package-import-method#

Added in: v1.25.0

Default: auto
Type: auto, hardlink, copy, clone

Controls the way packages are imported from the store.

auto - try to clone packages from the store. If cloning is not supported then hardlink packages from the store. If neither cloning nor linking is possible, fall back to copying
hardlink - hard link packages from the store
copy - copy packages from the store
clone - clone (AKA copy-on-write or reference link) packages from the store

modules-cache-max-age#

Added in: v6.0.0

Default: 10080 (7 days in minutes)
Type: number

The time in minutes after which orphan packages from the modules directory should be removed. pnpm keeps a cache of packages in the modules directory. This boosts installation speed when switching branches or downgrading dependencies.

Lockfile Settings#

lockfile#

Added in: v1.32.0 as shrinkwrap

Default: true
Type: Boolean

When set to false, pnpm won't read or generate a pnpm-lock.yaml file.

prefer-frozen-lockfile#

Added in: v1.37.1 as prefer-frozen-shrinkwrap

Default: true (from v1.38.0)
Type: Boolean

When set to true and the available pnpm-lock.yaml satisfies the package.json dependencies directive, a headless installation is performed. A headless installation skips all dependency resolution as it does not need to modify the lockfile.

Registry & Authentication Settings#

registry#

Default: https://registry.npmjs.org/
Type: url

The base URL of the npm package registry (trailing slash included).

<scope>:registry#

The npm registry that should be used for packages of the specified scope. For example, setting @babel:registry=https://example.com/packages/npm/ will enforce that when you use pnpm add @babel/core, or any @babel scoped package, the package will be fetched from https://example.com/packages/npm instead of the default registry.

<URL>:_authToken#

Define the authentication bearer token to use when accessing the specified registry. For example:

//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

You may also use an environment variable. For example:

//registry.npmjs.org/:_authToken={NPM_TOKEN}

<URL>:always-auth#

Default: false
Type: Boolean

Force pnpm to always require authentication (even for GET requests) when accessing the specified registry. For example:

@babel:registry=https://gitlab.com/api/v4/packages/npm///gitlab.com/api/v4/packages/npm/:always-auth=true
registry=https://registry.npmjs.org///registry.npmjs.org/:always-auth=true

Request Settings#

ca#

Default: The npm CA certificate
Type: String, Array or null

The Certificate Authority signing certificate that is trusted for SSL connections to the registry. Values should be in PEM format (AKA "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)"). For example:

ca="-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nXXXX\nXXXX\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

Set to null to only allow known registrars, or to a specific CA cert to trust only that specific signing authority.

Multiple CAs can be trusted by specifying an array of certificates:

ca[]="..."ca[]="..."

cafile#

Default: null
Type: path

A path to a file containing one or multiple Certificate Authority signing certificates. Similar to the ca setting, but allows for multiple CAs, as well as for the CA information to be stored in a file instead of being specified via CLI.

cert#

Default: null
Type: String

A client certificate to pass when accessing the registry. Values should be in PEM format (AKA "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)"). For example:

cert="-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nXXXX\nXXXX\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----"

It is not the path to a certificate file (and there is no certfile option).

https-proxy#

Default: null
Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing HTTPS requests. If the HTTPS_PROXY, https_proxy, HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variables are set, their values will be used instead.

key#

Default: null
Type: String

A client key to pass when accessing the registry. Values should be in PEM format (AKA "Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER)"). For example:

key="-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nXXXX\nXXXX\n-----END PRIVATE KEY-----"

It is not the path to a key file (and there is no keyfile option).

local-address#

Default: undefined
Type: IP Address

The IP address of the local interface to use when making connections to the npm registry. Must be IPv4 in versions of Node prior to 12.x.

proxy#

Default: null
Type: url

A proxy to use for outgoing http requests. If the HTTP_PROXY or http_proxy environment variables are set, proxy settings will be honored by the underlying request library.

noproxy#

Added in: v5.18.8

Default: null
Type: String

A comma-separated string of domain extensions that a proxy should not be used for.

strict-ssl#

Default: true
Type: Boolean

Whether or not to do SSL key validation when making requests to the registry via HTTPS.

network-concurrency#

Default: 16
Type: Number

Controls the maximum number of HTTP(S) requests to process simultaneously.

fetch-retries#

Default: 2
Type: Number

How many times to retry if pnpm fails to fetch from the registry.

fetch-retry-factor#

Default: 10
Type: Number

The exponential factor for retry backoff.

fetch-retry-mintimeout#

Default: 10000 (10 seconds)
Type: Number

The minimum (base) timeout for retrying requests.

fetch-retry-maxtimeout#

Default: 60000 (1 minute)
Type: Number

The maximum fallback timeout to ensure the retry factor does not make requests too long.

fetch-timeout#

Added in: v6.2.0

Default: 60000 (1 minute)
Type: Number

The maximum amount of time to wait for HTTP requests to complete.

CLI Settings#

[no-]color#

Added in: v4.1.0

Default: auto
Type: auto, always, never

Controls colors in the output.

auto - output uses colors when the standard output is a terminal or TTY.
always - ignore the difference between terminals and pipes. You’ll rarely want this; in most scenarios, if you want color codes in your redirected output, you can instead pass a --color flag to the pnpm command to force it to use color codes. The default setting is almost always what you’ll want.
never - turns off colors. This is the setting used by --no-color.

loglevel#

Added in: v4.13.0

Default: info
Type: debug, info, warn, error

Any logs at or higher than the given level will be shown. You can instead pass --silent to turn off all output logs.

strict-peer-dependencies#

Added in: v2.15.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, commands will fail if there is a missing or invalid peer dependency in the tree.

use-beta-cli#

Added in: v3.6.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean

Experimental option that enables beta features of the CLI. This means that you may get some changes to the CLI functionality that are breaking changes, or potentially bugs.

recursive-install#

Added in: v5.4.0

Default: true
Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, the primary behaviour of pnpm install becomes that of pnpm install -r, meaning the install is performed on all workspace or subdirectory packages.

Else, pnpm install will exclusively build the package in the current directory.

engine-strict#

Default: false
Type: Boolean

If this is enabled, pnpm will not install any package that claims to not be compatible with the current Node version.

Regardless of this configuration, installation will always fail if a project (not a dependency) specifies an incompatible version in its engines field.

npm-path#

Added in: v4.8.0

Type: path

The location of the npm binary that pnpm uses for some actions, like publishing.

Build Settings#

child-concurrency#

Default: 5
Type: Number

The maximum number of child processes to allocate simultaneously to build node_modules.

side-effects-cache#

Added in: v1.31.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean
Stability: Experimental

Use and cache the results of (pre/post)install hooks.

side-effects-cache-readonly#

Added in: v1.31.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean
Stability: Experimental

Only use the side effects cache if present, do not create it for new packages.

unsafe-perm#

Default: false IF running as root, ELSE true
Type: Boolean

Set to true to enable UID/GID switching when running package scripts. If set explicitly to false, then installing as a non-root user will fail.

Other Settings#

use-running-store-server#

Added in: v2.5.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean

Only allows installation with a store server. If no store server is running, installation will fail.

save-prefix#

Default: '^'
Type: String

Configure how versions of packages installed to a package.json file get prefixed.

For example, if a package has version 1.2.3, by default its version is set to ^1.2.3 which allows minor upgrades for that package, but after pnpm config set save-prefix='~' it would be set to ~1.2.3 which only allows patch upgrades.

This setting is ignored when the added package has a range specified. For instance, pnpm add [email protected] will set the version of foo in package.json to 2, regardless of the value of save-prefix.

tag#

Default: latest
Type: String

If you pnpm add a package and you don't provide a specific version, then it will install the package at the version registered under the tag from this setting.

This also sets the tag that is added to the [email protected] specified by the pnpm tag command if no explicit tag is given.

global-dir#

Added in: v4.2.0

Default: <path to node>/pnpm-global
Type: path

Specify a custom directory to store global packages.

state-dir#

Added in: v6.10.0

Default: $XDG_STATE_HOME/pnpm
Type: path

The directory where pnpm creates the pnpm-state.json file that is currently used only by the update checker.

cache-dir#

Added in: v6.10.0

Default: $XDG_CACHE_HOME/pnpm
Type: path

The location of the package metadata cache.

use-node-version#

Added in: v6.5.0

Default: undefined
Type: semver

Specifies which exact Node.js version should be used for the project's runtime. pnpm will automatically install the specified version of Node.js and use it for running pnpm run commands or the pnpm node command.

use-stderr#

Added in: v6.5.0

Default: false
Type: Boolean

When true, all the output is written to stderr.