Set Up a Monorepo with pnpm Workspace

Problem

Frontend, landing page, mobile apps, and infrastructure code scattered across separate repos makes dependency management painful and sharing common code difficult.

Solution

# pnpm-workspace.yaml
packages:
  - frontend
  - landing
  - android
  - ios
  - infra

// Root package.json
{
  "name": "my-project",
  "private": true,
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "pnpm -F @my-project/frontend dev",
    "build": "pnpm -F @my-project/frontend build"
  }
}

A single pnpm install at the root installs dependencies for all packages. Use the -F (filter) flag to target specific packages.

Key Points

• A single pnpm-workspace.yaml file is all you need. Unlike yarn workspaces, there’s no need to configure anything in package.json.
• pnpm uses symlinks and content-addressable storage, saving disk space while enforcing strict dependency isolation. It’s structurally better suited for monorepos than npm or yarn.
• Always set "private": true in the root package.json to prevent accidental publishing to npm.