Description
Description:
Support using https://github.com/nodejs/corepack to manage non-NPM package managers.
Ideally in between installing node and bootstrapping the package manager cache, this action:
- enables corepack (could be a no-op depending on the node version)
- caches/restores the corepack root
- runs
corepack prepare --active
(after some research, that last one may not necessary but instead makes an implicit step explicit)
This behavior could either be trigged by the presence of the packageManager
field in the root package.json
(might be suprising), cache: 'auto'
as possibly envisioned in #306, or corepack: true
Justification:
Both pnpm and yarn support corepack, and yarn recommendeds corepack for package manager versioning. Currently using corepack with this action will break when using the cache
key as this action assumes the appropriate version manager has already been installed. However, you don't necessarily want to bootstrap with corepack until the appropriate node version has been installed and configured.
Are you willing to submit a PR?
Yes
Activity
dmitry-shibanov commentedon Jun 28, 2022
Hello @RichiCoder1. Thank you for your feature request. Actually we had similar proposal to enable corepack by default. I think we should reinvestigate adding corepack support. We'll ping you about its results.
RichiCoder1 commentedon Jun 28, 2022
@dmitry-shibanov apologies for not seeing that closed ticket! I very much hope ya'll do. While technically experimental, it's being officially recommended and there's no (current) way to use both this action and corepack without some awkward contortions. Looking forward to the outcome!
tisonkun commentedon Aug 16, 2022
I use corepack locally and hope we can integrate it with GitHub Actions :)
brcrista commentedon Aug 16, 2022
If I'm understanding correctly, right now you can run
setup-node
, set up Corepack, and then run the standalonecache
action. So is the benefit of this just to be able to do it all inside thesetup-node
action?tisonkun commentedon Aug 16, 2022
Thank @brcrista ! Could you share a minimal config to achieve this? I may not understand how to set up corepack manually here.
brcrista commentedon Aug 16, 2022
I don't know either, I was just summarizing my understanding from the issue description.
RichiCoder1 commentedon Aug 16, 2022
The semi-simple way w/ caching and something like pnpm would be:
I think that may be faintly fragile as
corepack enable
operates on the built in node and not the potentially installed one. It does however fix an issue wheresetup-node
will look for apnpm
exe/cache that doesn't exist yet when setting up cache I think.RichiCoder1 commentedon Aug 16, 2022
@brcrista and your understanding is correct. Ideally with some extra smarts enabled by knowing exactly which packageManager is in use.
dsame commentedon Aug 17, 2022
@RichiCoder1 thanks for you notification, it was a good point to review, but we should not go ahead of nodejs team and turn on corepack by default while it is not default for the nodejs itself.
The consequences of having corepack enabled are risky for some builds and adding new input is not necessary complication of the action and its documentation.
In the current state of the corepack to have an explicit simple step enabling the feature seems to be optimal solution.
I have to reject the feature request and close the issue, but please feel free to reopen it or create new one in case you still have some problems.
73 remaining items
rt-joe commentedon Oct 9, 2024
Even if it were removed today, node v20 is supported until April 2026 and soon to be LTS v22 into 2027/2028 (idk exact date) and they both include corepack. There's been arguments for/against corepack for a long while, many of which were already mentioned in this issue. We've already wasted 2+ years (since at least this issue was opened, although corepack has been around much longer) without proper support despite the high popularity of this "experimental" feature. We can still get 2-3 more years of usage and easily remove it if/when it is finally decided to put corepack to rest which I'm guessing would be v24 at the earliest.
That being said, I agree with what @karfau said as well.
karfau commentedon Oct 9, 2024
Has anybody attempted to create a PR for this?
Yes: #901
I think it should be fine to use the PR as is or with an "experimental feature" / "only works with node versions x-?" in the readme, and deal with the topic of extending the support in a different way, when the related node version is released.
fix(pipeline): cache yarn deps with corepack (#2405)
trivikr commentedon Mar 20, 2025
The Node.js team has decided to stop distributing corepack from v25+ onwards in TSC vote nodejs/TSC#1697 (comment)
However, recent updates indicate that the developers will continue to use corepack, but install it from npm instead.
I've summarized some updates in nodejs/corepack#681 (comment)
It would be awesome if setup-node action accepts a configuration, say
corepack: true
suggested in PR #901, which installs the latest version of corepack from npm and enables it.benquarmby commentedon Mar 21, 2025
Wholeheartedly agree with that plan, with one small tweak.
For those concerned with stability / security, there needs to be a way to pin to a specific corepack version rather than use
@latest
. This mirrors how Node.js distributes corepack today; one specific version per release. Teams can use tools like renovate or dependabot to prompt for stable upgrades with a visible code change. That would reduce the vector for supply-chain attacks and avoid dealing with day-zero bugs. Even for those who don't care about the risks of@latest
, there needs to be an escape hatch in case the bleeding edge is broken.Edit: This is now implemented in #901, thank you @jrparish
SpecLad commentedon Jun 4, 2025
I submitted an alternative proposal, which is to add Corepack to the base runner images: actions/runner-images#12310. If that's implemented, then no changes to the action will be required.
fulldecent commentedon Jun 10, 2025
Here is the workaround GitHub Actions workflow I use to workaround how setup-node does not handle corepack.
https://github.com/fulldecent/github-pages-template/blob/e000f740424695642b479074872fc32835aa6be2/.github/workflows/code-lint.yml#L19-L26
This does NOT support caching.
Would love to see others' live workflows that are working around the issue.
benquarmby commentedon Jun 10, 2025
Thanks for the contributions. However, neither of these address the chicken / egg problem for self-hosted runners where we can't assume an existing Node installation. We're starting from a clean slate as explained here: #182 (comment)
In the mean time, I've just gotten used to doing this for every single workflow. It's not great, but it works:
rt-joe commentedon Jun 11, 2025
I use the same double setup-node as @benquarmby. Also previously stated in this thread over 2 YEARS ago 😒
The amount of times I've had to put that into a workflow w/ a comment about why it's duplicated with a link to this issue... 🙄
vishnup-ditto commentedon Jun 12, 2025
Hi @benquarmby , have you every tried this with yarn as the package manager. I assume the caching mechanism should work but wanted to check
benquarmby commentedon Jun 12, 2025
With yarn 1.x, yes. This was working just fine before switching to pnpm. Never tried with yarn berry.
Note that the action is smart enough to only perform the caching steps on the second run. It doesn't try to install Node again.
ci(lib-rt-sdk-node): add fix to enable corepack