pnpm run

Aliases: run-script

Runs a script defined in the package’s manifest file.

Examples

Let’s say you have a watch script configured in your package.json, like so:

  1. "scripts": {
  2. "watch": "build-command --watch"
  3. }

You can now run that script by using pnpm run watch! Simple, right? Another thing to note for those that like to save keystrokes and time is that all scripts get aliased in as pnpm commands, so ultimately pnpm watch is just shorthand for pnpm run watch (ONLY for scripts that do not share the same name as already existing pnpm commands).

Details

In addition to the shell’s pre-existing PATH, pnpm run includes node_modules/.bin in the PATH provided to scripts. This means that so long as you have a package installed, you can use it in a script like a regular command. For example, if you have eslint installed, you can write up a script like so:

  1. "lint": "eslint src --fix"

And even though eslint is not installed globally in your shell, it will run.

For workspaces, as of v3.5, <workspace root>/node_modules/.bin is also added to the PATH, so if a tool is installed in the workspace root, it may be called in any workspace package’s scripts.

Differences with npm run

By default, pnpm doesn’t run arbitrary pre and post hooks for user-defined scripts (such as prestart). This behavior, inherited from npm, caused scripts to be implicit rather than explicit, obfuscating the execution flow. It also led to surprising executions with pnpm serve also running pnpm preserve.

If for some reason you need the pre/post scripts behavior of npm, use the enable-pre-post-scripts option.

Options

script-shell

Added in: v5.10.0

  • Default: null
  • Type: path

The shell to use for scripts run with the pnpm run command.

For instance, to force usage of Git Bash on Windows:

  1. pnpm config set script-shell "C:\\Program Files\\git\\bin\\bash.exe"

shell-emulator

Added in: v5.8.0

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When true, pnpm will use a JavaScript implementation of a bash-like shell to execute scripts.

This option simplifies cross-platform scripting. For instance, by default, the next script will fail on non-POSIX-compliant systems:

  1. "scripts": {
  2. "test": "NODE_ENV=test node test.js"
  3. }

But if the shell-emulator setting is set to true, it will work on all platforms.

--recursive, -r

This runs an arbitrary command from each package’s “scripts” object. If a package doesn’t have the command, it is skipped. If none of the packages have the command, the command fails.

--if-present

Added in: v4.5.0

You can use the --if-present flag to avoid exiting with a non-zero exit code when the script is undefined. This lets you run potentially undefined scripts without breaking the execution chain.

--parallel

Added in: v5.1.0

Completely disregard concurrency and topological sorting, running a given script immediately in all matching packages with prefixed streaming output. This is the preferred flag for long-running processes over many packages, for instance, a lengthy build process.

--stream

Added in: v5.1.0

Stream output from child processes immediately, prefixed with the originating package directory. This allows output from different packages to be interleaved.

--aggregate-output

Added in: v6.24.0

Aggregate output from child processes that are run in parallel, and only print output when the child process is finished. It makes reading large logs after running pnpm -r <command> with --parallel or with --workspace-concurrency=<number> much easier (especially on CI). Only --reporter=append-only is supported.

enable-pre-post-scripts

Added in: v6.1.0

  • Default: false
  • Type: Boolean

When true, pnpm will run any pre/post scripts automatically. So running pnpm foo will be like running pnpm prefoo && pnpm foo && pnpm postfoo.

--filter <package_selector>

Read more about filtering.