Dependencies are not packaged by electron-builder when using pnpm

[Ripwords]

• Electron-Builder Version: 22.11.7

• Node Version: 16.9.1

• Electron Version: 15.0.0
• Electron Type (current, beta, nightly): current

• Target: windows/nsis

I'm having issues trying to use pnpm and electron-builder. I tried multiple times to package the app using basic commands and build configurations from online guides but i would always get dependency related errors after packaging it.

Initially i thought it was my configuration error, but after copying the whole project and used npm instead, everything worked as expected.

From what i could find, it seems that electron-builder can't resolve the dependencies within the .pnpm folder, but i am not 100% certain of this.

pnpm and electron-builder are both great would love to have this fixed

Build config

Using pnpm

As shown in the screenshot, semver already exist in node_modules/.pnpm

Using npm with same exact build config

Application is built with no errors by electron-builder

[mmaietta]

@develar can you please take a look at this when you have a chance?

[cangzhang]

Run into same problem, the node_modules folder bundled in app.asar does not contain modules installed under .pnpm/, which are symlinks created by pnpm install.

[plimeor]

Any updates?

[cah4a]

Hey guys!
Do you have any plans to support pnpm?
It reduces pain for developers that have gigabytes of node_modules placed here and there.
Would love to use it with electron too.

[mmaietta]

I don't have plans to implement the support for pnp. But I'd happily review PRs for it! 🙂

[cupcakearmy]

Same here, would be awesome to have support for it

[mmaietta]

Quick test, can someone try setting .npmrc to copy from the global pnpm store for deps?
https://pnpm.io/npmrc#package-import-method

package-import-method=copy

[monsterkodi]

I tried the copy setting. But doesn't seem to make any difference for me.

[mmaietta]

@develar really could use your help on this one. Seems to be failing with readDependencyTree in your app-builder project.
https://github.com/develar/app-builder/blob/c79345743b794ccef41493decafb0b5b2eece505/pkg/node-modules/tree.go#L41

I've tried other alternatives for reading dependency trees and they aren't viable. I'm not sure how app-builder works, but it seems like it just needs to also search node_modules/.pnpm/node_modules/* for all dependencies