Sharing dependencies across packages

[appsforartists]

Problem

package A depends on [email protected]. package B depends on [email protected]. Someone downstream now has two copies of the same dependency because we weren't diligent about using consistent versions across packages.

Solution 1

Use "*" as the version number for all dependencies in packages. Use a specific version number in the repo root. Write a tool that replaces * with a specific version during release.

Challenges

• The tool would either require upstream modifications to or wrapping of lerna:
  • We'd need to separate intrarepo linking from npm installing. Now, they are both comingled in bootstrap.
  • Ideally, the tool itself could be contributed upstream into lerna.
• We'd need to ensure we aren't implicitly depending on a package by nature of it being depended on in the root repo
  • This can be solved via CI. We can ensure that each package only has access to its own dependencies during testing.

Solution 2

Write a linter that asserts that each package.json has the same number for each dependency

Challenges

Simpler, but more manual, than solution 1.

[appsforartists]

@thejameskyle @gigabo be curious for your thoughts here. You guys have definitely worked on more monorepos than I have. 😃

[appsforartists]

Solution 2 should be pretty easy to implement:

• Keep a master list of dependencies in the root package.json.
• Walk each package. Ensure that dependencies only contains k:v pairs that are in the root package.json's dependencies.