esbuild creates node_modules/.cache directory in Yarn PnP repo

[jlvandenhout]

When I create a Yarn PnP repo and install or run esbuild, it creates a node_modules/.cache/esbuild directory containing pnpapi-esbuild-linux-64-0.15.14-esbuild, even after deleting the directory. Shouldn't it just be able to use Yarn PnP directly?

Steps to reproduce:

1. mkdir test && cd test
2. yarn init && yarn add --dev esbuild

$ ls .yarn/cache
esbuild-linux-64-npm-0.15.14-45bb2717bc-8.zip  esbuild-npm-0.15.14-0f40bc75be-3e09ddca1f.zip
$ ls node_modules/.cache/esbuild/
pnpapi-esbuild-linux-64-0.15.14-esbuild

Versions used:

• Linux kernel 5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2
• Yarn 3.2.4
• esbuild 0.15.14

[evanw]

This is needed because esbuild’s package has to run an executable but Yarn sticks everything in zip files, and the OS can’t run an executable when it’s in a zip file. Yarn’s official documentation says to use this folder instead of using esbuild’s package directory, so esbuild is just doing what it’s supposed to do according to the Yarn maintainers: https://yarnpkg.com/advanced/rulebook#packages-should-never-write-inside-their-own-folder-outside-of-postinstall.

[jlvandenhout]

All clear, thanks for the explanation!

[evanw]

An alternative is for esbuild to tell Yarn to not put esbuild’s packages in zip files. Then esbuild will take up more space on the file system in some cases, but shouldn’t need to create a folder to put the executable in like this. I should probably do that because this isn’t the first time people have complained about this.

[jlvandenhout]

Since esbuild is mostly used as dev dependency anyway, I think the extra space wouldn't matter too much. In any case, thank you for the explanations and considerations. You can consider this closed if you want 👍