Aube doesn't error on devEngines.packageManager.version mismatch

[hilja]

If I have aube@1.38.0 installed and I've defined devEngines in my project's package.json with a different version:

{
  "devEngines": {
    "packageManager": {
      "name": "aube",
      "version": "1.37.0",
      "onFail": "error"
    }
  }
}

aube -v (or any aube command) will not error, it prints the installed version: 1.38.0 macos-arm64 (2026-08-07).

Similar pnpm setup errors with:

[ERROR] This project is configured to use 11.19.0 of pnpm. Your current pnpm is v11.20.0
If you want to bypass this version check, you can set the "pmOnFail" configuration to "warn" or "ignore" (e.g. via --pm-on-fail=ignore). If using "devEngines.packageManager", you can set its "onFail" to "warn" or "ignore"

aube doctor will print the version from devEngines though:

version:
  aube           1.37.0
  build-profile  release
  target         macos
  arch           aarch64

[jdx]

Thanks for the report. I confirmed this is a bug rather than the intended compatibility behavior. The earlier reply accurately described the implementation, but not the behavior we want.

Aube will continue allowing devEngines.packageManager entries that name pnpm, npm, bun, or another package manager so it remains usable in existing teams. When the entry specifically names aube, though, an explicit onFail: "error" should reject a running-version mismatch.

PR #1269 fixes that distinction: the mismatch now fails even if the requested aube version is already installed, and aube --version runs the same self-version check. It also includes a regression test proving that a pnpm declaration does not guard the version command.

#1269

AI-assisted — Tool: Codex; model: openai/gpt-5; version: unavailable.