npx prisma@{version} generate does not pass the given version to generators when prisma is installed in the working directory

[RobertCraigie]

Bug description

If you explicitly pass the version to npx, e.g. npx prisma@3.4.0 generate while already having the CLI installed in the current directory, e.g.

npm install prisma@3.6.0
npx prisma@3.4.0 generate # version @3.6.0 is passed to generators

How to reproduce

https://github.com/RobertCraigie/prisma-npx-version-reproduction

Expected behavior

The generator should be given the 3.4.0 version

Prisma information

See reproduction.

Environment & setup

• OS: Mac OS
• Database: N/A
• Node.js version: v17.1.0

Prisma Version

prisma                  : 3.6.0
@prisma/client          : Not found
Current platform        : darwin
Query Engine (Node-API) : libquery-engine dc520b92b1ebb2d28dc3161f9f82e875bd35d727 (at ../../../.npm/_npx/2778af9cee32ff87/node_modules/@prisma/engines/libquery_engine-darwin.dylib.node)
Migration Engine        : migration-engine-cli dc520b92b1ebb2d28dc3161f9f82e875bd35d727 (at ../../../.npm/_npx/2778af9cee32ff87/node_modules/@prisma/engines/migration-engine-darwin)
Introspection Engine    : introspection-core dc520b92b1ebb2d28dc3161f9f82e875bd35d727 (at ../../../.npm/_npx/2778af9cee32ff87/node_modules/@prisma/engines/introspection-engine-darwin)
Format Binary           : prisma-fmt dc520b92b1ebb2d28dc3161f9f82e875bd35d727 (at ../../../.npm/_npx/2778af9cee32ff87/node_modules/@prisma/engines/prisma-fmt-darwin)
Default Engines Hash    : dc520b92b1ebb2d28dc3161f9f82e875bd35d727
Studio                  : 0.440.0

[janpio]

That is an interesting observation and points to a fundamental problem in how we retrieve the version of prisma that is running.

[jkomyno]

Hi, while this issue is in fact reproducible with prisma@3.6.0, it doesn't seem to arise with the latest versions of prisma@4.x.x.

Reproduction

System info: darwin, Node.js 18.8.0, npx@8.18.0, no prisma executable installed globally.

Considering the reproduction repo, drop package-lock.json and bump @prisma/generator-helper to ^4.2.0, replacing the package.json file with:

{
  "name": "prisma-npx-version-reproduction",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "scripts": {
    "generator": "ts-node src"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@prisma/generator-helper": "^4.2.0",
    "ts-node": "^10.4.0"
  }
}

Run the following commands:

❯ npx prisma@4.3.0 generate
Got prisma version c875e43600dfe042452e0b868f7a48b817b9640b

npm install prisma@4.4.0

❯ npx prisma@4.3.0 generate
Got prisma version c875e43600dfe042452e0b868f7a48b817b9640b

As we can see, the two prisma version's hashes are the same.

[janpio]

I think this might indeed rely on the npm/npx version being used. If I am reading this correctly, it might have been related to npm/cli#3210 (which was a big source for confusion in the past).

[aqrln]

Given the previous two comments, should this issue be closed?

[aqrln]

Confirmed that it was a bug in npm and not in Prisma with the reproduction repo: the hash is now identical (1c9fdaa9e2319b814822d6dbfd0a69e1fcc13a85) when running npx prisma@3.4.0 generate both before and after installing prisma@3.6.0 locally. So Prisma passed its version to the generator correctly, it was npx that ran completely different version of Prisma than was requested, which is something I don't think we could detect or work around.

Given the above, and since none of the Node.js versions we currently officially support seem to ship with affected npm 7 (docker run node:14 npm --version prints 6.14.18 and docker run node:16 npm --version prints 8.19.4), I'll go ahead and close this issue. Please let me know if I missed something.