approve-builds

Drop-in replacement for broken pnpm approve-builds.

Problem

Since pnpm v10, all dependency build scripts require explicit approval. The built-in pnpm approve-builds command has a known bug that corrupts pnpm-workspace.yaml by splitting package names into individual characters:

# What pnpm approve-builds generates (broken):
onlyBuiltDependencies:
  - ' '
  - ','
  - '-'
  - /
  - '5'
  - '@'
  - a
  - d
  - e
  - esbuild
  - h
  - i
  - ...

This tool writes approvals correctly to package.json instead:

{
  "pnpm": {
    "onlyBuiltDependencies": ["@swc/core", "esbuild"]
  }
}

Install

Prerequisites

Ensure PNPM_HOME is configured (required for global packages):

pnpm setup
source ~/.zshrc  # or restart terminal

From source

git clone https://github.com/floatrx/approve-builds.git
cd approve-builds
pnpm install
pnpm link -g

Usage

Run in any project directory:

approve-builds

The tool will:

1. Run pnpm install to detect packages with ignored build scripts
2. Show an interactive checkbox to select which packages to approve
3. Write selected packages to package.json under pnpm.onlyBuiltDependencies
4. Re-run pnpm install to apply

Shell alias

Add to your .zshrc or .bashrc:

alias ab="approve-builds"

License

MIT