`pnpm` setting steps

Why use pnpm

• Faster then npm
• More dist-efficient (uses symlinks and a content-addressable store)
• Strict by default (prevents dependency hoisting issues)

Steps

1. Install pnpm

npm install -g pnpm

2. Initialize a new project

pnpm init

This command creates a package.json file.

3. Install dependencies

Add a package:

pnpm add <package-name>

Add a dev dependency:

pnpm add -D <package-name>

Example:

pnpm add react
pnpm add -D typescript ts-node

4. Run Scripts

In package.json, define scripts like this:

{
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node main.js",
    "dev": "vite"
  }
}

Then run

pnpm start
pnpm dev

5. Install all dependencies

pnpm install

(Shortcut: pnpm i)

6. Other useful commands

Remove a package

pnpm remove <package-name>

Update packages

pnpm update

List installed packages

pnpm list

A few notes when switching to pnpm:

• pnpm creates a pnpm-lock.yaml instead of package-lock.json.
• If you’re using a monorepo, pnpm handles it differently (via workspaces).
• You might want to delete node_modules and package-lock.json before switching to avoid conflicts:

rm -rf node_modules package-lock.json
pnpm install