0000-workspaces-config-management.md

npm workspaces: Config management

Summary

Series of subcommands to allow managing what paths/folders should be handled as workspaces.

Motivation

Minimize manual editing of the package.json file while providing more resilient and automated workflows for defining workspaces within your project.

Detailed Explanation

• Add positional workspaces argument e.g: lib/workspaces.js that provides subcommands to enable workflows for workspaces* config management.

Rationale and Alternatives

• The obvious alternative is to choose to not provide subcommands to handle workspaces config management.
• Others? TBD

Implementation

# Given a structure:
.
├── package.json { "name": "foo" }
└── packages
    ├── dep-a
    │   └── package.json { "name": "dep-a", "version": "1.0.0" }
    └── dep-b
        └── package.json { "name": "dep-b", "version": "1.3.1" }

$ npm workspaces ls

$ npm workspaces add ./packages/dep-a

$ cat package.json
{
  "name": "foo",
  "workspaces": [
    "./packages/dep-a"
  ]
}

$ npm workspaces ls
dep-a@1.0.0 -> ./packages/dep-a

$ npm workspaces add ./dep-b

$ cat package.json
{
  "name": "foo",
  "workspaces": [
    "./packages/dep-a",
    "./packages/dep-b"
  ]
}

$ npm workspaces ls
dep-a@1.0.0 -> ./packages/dep-a
dep-b@1.3.1 -> ./packages/dep-b

# Remove by name/spec:
$ npm workspaces rm dep-a

# Remove by path:
$ npm workspaces rm ./packages/dep-b

$ cat package.json
{
  "name": "foo",
  "workspaces": []
}

$ npm workspaces ls

# Add glob:
$ npm workspaces add ./packages/*

$ cat package.json
{
  "name": "foo",
  "workspaces": [
    "./packages/*"
  ]
}

$ npm workspaces ls
dep-a@1.0.0 -> ./packages/dep-a
dep-b@1.3.1 -> ./packages/dep-b

Prior Art

TBD

Unresolved Questions and Bikeshedding

TBD