Better Corepack support

[jonahsnider]

Corepack is an official Node.js tool for managing package managers like npm, pnpm, or Yarn. It has been bundled with Node.js versions since v16.9.

Instead of running npm i -g yarn, you run corepack enable. This places yarn + pnpm binaries (technically they're Corepack shims) alongside the node binary.

Unfortunately, switching to a new Node.js version with fnm requires you to run corepack enable again before you can use your custom package managers.

Could a configuration option (ex. --corepack) be added to automatically handle this for users?

Related: post-install hooks like in #139 could be used to run corepack enable, although it might be good to have a dedicated option for Corepack since it's going to be a very common workflow for Node.js users

[arcanis]

Would be nice if it could be run automatically - perhaps when detecting that the shims are already there?

[Schniz]

Hi! sorry for the delay. I don't know corepack so much, so I'm sorry if my questions are stupid:

Unfortunately, switching to a new Node.js version with fnm requires you to run corepack enable again before you can use your custom package managers.

By switching to a new Node.js version you mean a fresh version after installation, or after every fnm use into a version that was already corepack enable-d?

Could a configuration option (ex. --corepack) be added to automatically handle this for users?

Where would this configuration go?

• fnm install --corepack
• we can also go with fnm env --install-with-corepack (and therefore emitting FNM_INSTALL_WITH_COREPACK=true, which we can use in fnm install :smiley:)

I think my next question would be, why shouldn't it be the default? Will it hurt to call corepack enable on all installation after a certain version?

Related: post-install hooks like in #139 could be used to run corepack enable

intriguing. Maybe we can have a $FNM_DIR/hooks/ directory that can allow executables to be fired when fnm does something:

• $FNM_DIR/hooks/post_install{,.sh,.cmd,.bat,.exe}
• $FNM_DIR/hooks/post_use{,.sh,.cmd,.bat,.exe}

[jonahsnider]

By switching to a new Node.js version you mean a fresh version after installation, or after every fnm use into a version that was already corepack enable-d?

After a fresh install.

Where would this configuration go?

• fnm install --corepack
• we can also go with fnm env --install-with-corepack (and therefore emitting FNM_INSTALL_WITH_COREPACK=true, which we can use in fnm install 😃)

Both of these seem fine. Having fnm env --install-with-corepack seems helpful since you won't need to repeat --corepack over and over.

I think my next question would be, why shouldn't it be the default? Will it hurt to call corepack enable on all installation after a certain version?

Corepack is currently marked "Stability: 1 - Experimental" by Node.js and is explicitly opt-in because of this:

Due to its experimental status, Corepack currently needs to be explicitly enabled to have any effect.

Until it's more stable I don't think Corepack should be the default for fnm.

[arcanis]

I think my next question would be, why shouldn't it be the default? Will it hurt to call corepack enable on all installation after a certain version?

I personally think it could be interesting!

The main reason why it's not the default yet isn't stability per-se (as in, I'm not aware of any bugs in it), but rather that it's a little difficult to evaluate the risks for the whole Node userbase. Enabling it by default for a smaller population (such as fnm users) would be a good way to gather confidence.

[arcanis]

Friendly ping 😊

[nevir]

This would be extremely helpful in making it easier to onboard new developers to fnm