Pseudomonorepo Settings — Fence Each Project from Parent pnpm Workspaces

Why this exists

A pseudomonorepo (see the pseudomonorepos skill) is not a true monorepo. Its children — Obsidian plugins, Astro sites, scripts, etc. — must each install, build, and deploy independently. Sharing a node_modules/ or a workspace lockfile across them is exactly what we are trying to avoid.

But the lossless-monorepo root contains a pnpm-workspace.yaml:

# /Users/mpstaton/code/lossless-monorepo/pnpm-workspace.yaml
packages:
  - 'site'
  - 'content'
  - '!perplexed'

When you run pnpm install from anywhere inside the tree without a local fence, pnpm walks up looking for a workspace root, finds this file, and adopts the entire monorepo as the install scope. The user-visible symptom:

$ pnpm install
Scope: all 3 workspace projects
✔ The modules directory at "/Users/mpstaton/code/lossless-monorepo/node_modules"
   will be removed and reinstalled from scratch. Proceed? (Y/n) ·

That is pnpm offering to wipe the parent monorepo’s node_modules because it thinks you are operating on the workspace, not on the child project you cd’d into. Do not say yes. Add a fence instead.

The rule

Every child project in a pseudomonorepo MUST have a local pnpm-workspace.yaml:

# <project-root>/pnpm-workspace.yaml
packages:
  - '.'

This declares the project as a single-package workspace whose only member is itself. When pnpm walks up from inside the project, it finds this file first and stops; the parent monorepo’s workspace is never seen.

The same fence belongs at the pseudomonorepo level itself (content-farm/pnpm-workspace.yaml, etc.) so that child projects without their own fence still cannot escape upward to the lossless-monorepo root.

What does NOT work — `ignore-workspace=true` in `.npmrc`

Several .npmrc files in this tree contain:

ignore-workspace=true

This is silently ignored by pnpm 10. It is not a real pnpm setting (only the --ignore-workspace CLI flag exists). Verified by running pnpm install --lockfile-only in content-farm/ with ignore-workspace=true present: pnpm still reported Scope: all 3 workspace projects. After adding pnpm-workspace.yaml: packages: ['.'] to content-farm/, the same command ran cleanly with no scope message.

If you see ignore-workspace=true in a child’s .npmrc, treat it as documentation of intent only — the fence is the workspace yaml.

How to verify a fence works

cd <child-project>
pnpm install --lockfile-only

Working fence: output is just Done in NNNms using pnpm v10.x.x.
No fence (broken): output starts with Scope: all N workspace projects and references lossless-monorepo/node_modules.

Current state in `content-farm/` (snapshot 2026-05-06)

Path	Has `pnpm-workspace.yaml` fence	Notes
`content-farm/`	yes — added 2026-05-05	Stops walk-up to lossless-monorepo for any child without its own fence
`plugin-modules/cite-wide/`	yes — added 2026-05-05
`plugin-modules/perplexed/`	yes (pre-existing)
`plugin-modules/image-gin/`	yes (pre-existing, `packages: []`)
`plugin-modules/grab-reference/`	yes (pre-existing, custom packages list)
`plugin-modules/file-transporter/`	no	Protected only by content-farm’s fence
`plugin-modules/filestarter/`	no	Same
`plugin-modules/lmstud-yo/`	no	Same
`plugin-modules/metafetch/`	yes — added 2026-05-06
`plugin-modules/obsidian-git/`	no	Same
`plugin-modules/plunk-it/`	no	Same
`splash/`	no	Outside content-farm’s `packages: ['.']` glob — pnpm treats it as standalone

Aspiration: every child project gets its own pnpm-workspace.yaml. The content-farm-level fence is the safety net, not the canonical answer.

When scaffolding a new child project

The first file to create — before package.json, before tsconfig.json, before anything else — is:

# pnpm-workspace.yaml
packages:
  - '.'

This belongs in the project’s git repo. It should be the first commit on the default branch.

Cross-references

The pseudomonorepos skill at ~/.claude/skills/lossless-skills/pseudomonorepos/SKILL.md defines the pseudomonorepo pattern but (as of 2026-05-05) does not yet encode this workspace-fence rule. This reminder is the canonical source until that skill grows a references/workspace-fences.md.
The pnpm-workspace.yaml for each lossless-monorepo child must remain consistent with this convention; do not add 'plugin-modules/*' or similar globs to content-farm/pnpm-workspace.yaml — that re-creates the very coupling the fence prevents.