Installation

Prerequisites

pnpm 12 is a native executable and does not require Node.js after it is installed. Installing it through npm requires Node.js 22.13 or newer.

The unqualified latest tag on npm still points to pnpm 11. Use the latest-12 tag when installing pnpm 12.

Using pnpm

If you already have pnpm v11.10.0 or newer, update directly to pnpm 12:

pnpm self-update latest-12

Inside a project that pins pnpm through the packageManager field, self-update only updates that pin instead of installing pnpm globally.

Using a standalone script

You may install pnpm even if you don't have Node.js installed, using the following scripts.

On Windows

注意

Sometimes, Windows Defender may block our executable if you install pnpm this way.

Due to this issue, we currently recommend installing pnpm using npm on Windows.

Using PowerShell:

$env:PNPM_VERSION="latest-12"; Invoke-WebRequest https://get.pnpm.io/install.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | Invoke-Expression

On Windows, Microsoft Defender can significantly slow down installation of packages. You can add pnpm to Microsoft Defender's list of excluded folders in a PowerShell window with administrator rights by executing:

Add-MpPreference -ExclusionPath $(pnpm store path)

On POSIX systems

curl -fsSL https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | env PNPM_VERSION=latest-12 sh -

If you don't have curl installed, you would like to use wget:

wget -qO- https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | env PNPM_VERSION=latest-12 sh -

提示

You may use the pnpm runtime command then to install Node.js.

In a Docker container

# bash
wget -qO- https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | env PNPM_VERSION=latest-12 ENV="$HOME/.bashrc" SHELL="$(which bash)" bash -
# sh
wget -qO- https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | env PNPM_VERSION=latest-12 ENV="$HOME/.shrc" SHELL="$(which sh)" sh -
# dash
wget -qO- https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | env PNPM_VERSION=latest-12 ENV="$HOME/.dashrc" SHELL="$(which dash)" dash -

Installing a specific version

Prior to running the install script, you may optionally set an env variable PNPM_VERSION to install a specific version of pnpm:

curl -fsSL https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | env PNPM_VERSION=<version> sh -

Using npm

npx get-pnpm latest-12

Node.js 22.13 or newer is needed to run this installer, but not to run pnpm afterwards.

提示

Do you wanna use pnpm on CI servers? See: Continuous Integration.

Compatibility

Here is a list of past pnpm versions with respective Node.js version support.

Node.js	pnpm 8	pnpm 9	pnpm 10	pnpm 11	pnpm 12
Node.js 14	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
Node.js 16	✔️	❌	❌	❌	❌
Node.js 18	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
Node.js 20	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌	✔️
Node.js 22	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Node.js 24	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
Node.js 26	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️

pnpm 12 only needs Node.js when it is installed from npm; the version installed by the standalone script runs without Node.js.

Troubleshooting

If pnpm is broken and you cannot fix it by reinstalling, you might need to remove it manually from the PATH.

Let's assume you have the following error when running pnpm install:

C:\src>pnpm install
internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:883
  throw err;
  ^



Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Users\Bence\AppData\Roaming\npm\pnpm-global\4\node_modules\pnpm\bin\pnpm.js'
←[90m    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:880:15)←[39m
←[90m    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:725:27)←[39m
←[90m    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:72:12)←[39m
←[90m    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:47←[39m {
  code: ←[32m'MODULE_NOT_FOUND'←[39m,
  requireStack: []
}

First, try to find the location of pnpm by running: which pnpm. If you're on Windows, run where.exe pnpm.*. You'll get the location of the pnpm command, for instance:

$ which pnpm
/c/Program Files/nodejs/pnpm

Now that you know where the pnpm CLI is, open that directory and remove any pnpm-related files (pnpm.cmd, pnpx.cmd, pnpm, etc). Once done, install pnpm again and it should work as expected.

Updating pnpm

To update pnpm, run the self-update command:

pnpm self-update

Uninstalling pnpm

If you need to remove the pnpm CLI from your system and any files it has written to your disk, see Uninstalling pnpm.