Allow set of directories present to change without affecting lock file

[youngderekm]

We have a code base where different projects use different subsets of all possible source directories. Some collection of top level directories is checked out on developer machines and/or build machines. Some directories are common to different builds, but some only appear in one or two of these builds.

pnpm seems to be fine with directories in pnpm-workspace.yaml that aren't present in the file system (as would be the case when a developer only has a subset of the directories). If the build uses "pnpm install --frozen-lockfile", install works and the lockfile remains unchanged.

However, if you just use "pnpm install", or use "pnpm add" to modify a set of packages, the lockfile is updated and sections for any directory not currently on disk are removed from the file. If the developer adds a package, then commits the lockfile, then other developers end up with relevant pieces of the lock file removed.

If there was a mode where sections of the lock file weren't removed as long as they're explicitly listed in pnpm-workspace.yaml (without wildcards), then this would solve our problem. Sections of the lock file would only be removed if the directory is removed from pnpm-workspace.yaml, and pnpm operations could be run even if only a subset of the directories was present.

Is there any other way to work around this issue?

[zkochan]

I wonder how pnpm install --frozen-lockfile works if the target directories don't exist. I would expect pnpm to fail as it will try to create node_modules directories in there