TSC Decision regarding corepack

[benjamingr]

At a recent TSC decision the TSC have decided to include corepack as part o Node.js core. This means other package manager CLIs like yarn will be more easily usable with Node.js. The TSC has also decided not to include tools like yarn 1 inside Node.js core itself. Decision nodejs/TSC#1012 (comment)

@mhdawson said:

TSC vote concluded that we would not include yarn directly and agreed on moving towards Corepack as the way forward instead. See nodejs/TSC#1012 (comment) for results of the vote.

Closing this as we will not land the PR. Please let us know if you think that was not the right thing to do.

I'm opening a discussion so there is a place people can let us know what they think about that.

[benjamingr]

My own opinion: I just wanted to say that the TSC decision is a big win for package managers like yarn and having corepack in core sounds like a good way forward to me :)

[mhdawson]

My comment on the yarn issue, was intended to be "I closed this issue, let me know if I should have done something else", not necessarily asking about the vote.

[arcanis]

Seems good to me - I plan to resume work on #35398 sometime mid-May 👍

[bnb]

One thing that I hope to see is direct outreach to the npm team in the process of building out a Corepack in core. Ensuring that Corepack is a solution that enhances the experience of all package manager users should be a stated design goal.

It should not detract from any individual or groups' current/intended experience with their package manager of choice.

[jasnell]

The entire plan around corepack has always been not to touch or impact any part of the existing npm experience. The fact that corepack is there (and the associated jumpers) would not have any impact on users of npm. I don't believe that has changed in any way. The npm project could choose to support installation and management via corepack if it wanted, but that decision would need to come from the npm team. tl;dr it's best to treat corepack and npm as two entirely separate things.

[bnb]

Another question I have: how similar is corepack to the binary management/installer discussion we were having a while ago? Is this a situation where we should be focusing on solving two problems with the same solution, rather than one more narrow one that could potentially limit what we do in the future?

[jasnell]

Corepack could potentially serve as the basis for that later work if we chose to extend it. That's not in the plan at the moment.

[XadillaX]

Can cnpm be included in corepack?

It's popular in China.

[aduh95]

You should open an issue (or PR) on https://github.com/nodejs/corepack to discuss that.

[pcjmfranken]

Very concerned by Corepack's commitment to taking away user control by operating silently in the background, its trust-based architecture (e.g. "last known good" package manager versions), and the fact that it made it into the LTS without even verifying the package manager distributions.

The "opt-in for the time being" line in the project readme is just plain nightmare fuel.

[aduh95]

Corepack's commitment to taking away user control by operating silently in the background

I don't think any user control is taken away, you can always specify what version of a specific package manager you want to use.

$ corepack yarn --version
3.1.0
$ corepack [email protected] --version
1.21.1

I'm not sure I understand the other points you are making, but hopefully that answers your concern about user control.

[benjamingr]

Hey @pcjmfranken - it sounds like you have a valid concern regarding the decision and corepack. I think using terms like "nightmare fuel" kind of undermine it.

Do you mind stating your objection (ideally with an example of problematic behavior) so that the project members can better understand it and consider it?

Corepack is part of Node.js and isn't "locked" - anything can be revisited with new evidence/thoughts and of course this is an open source project with volunteers so if you have ideas for improving corepack (or time to work on them!) I am sure that would be appreciated as it's also part of the Node.js project.