Versions aren't resolved when publishConfig.directory is set

[Janpot]

We're using publishConfig.directory to publish our packages from a build folder. it looks like pkg.pr.new resolves the workspace:* dependencies in the source package.json, but then proceeds with pnpm pack which packs the build folder. The package.json in the build folder still contains the dependencies from when the build was executed, which was before running pkg-pr-new publish. Ideally pkg-pr-new publish should resolve workspace:* dependencies in the package.json of publishConfig.directory.

See https://github.com/mui/material-ui/actions/runs/16006394677/job/45153979647?pr=46467

[Aslemammad]

hey hey! hmm, interesting! i remember something was being done in this PR.

mui/material-ui#42984

let me know your thought. we'd also love to investigate this! but would love to see if a solution can be found for this first.

[Janpot]

Yes, currently we pass the resolved build folders to pkg-pr-new and used npm pack instead of pnpm pack, and that sort of works. Using pnpm pack fails as in https://github.com/mui/mui-public/actions/runs/16007263291/job/45156712446. I believe it is caused because the build folder package.json also contains the publishConfig and pnpm is trying to resolve a non-existing build folder.
But we want to change this, and simplify our setup. For that, ideally we can just pass our workspaces paths and let pnpm pack handle the publish directory.

edit: Just noticed that if we don't publish with --pnpm the catalog: dependencies are not resolved.

[Janpot]

@Aslemammad So the method in mui/material-ui#42984 falls short for us. We can't use npm pack as some of our projects rely on features that are only available in pnpm pack. But we can't use --pnpm because pkg.pr.new doesn't respect the publishConfig.directory setting when resolving workspace dependencies to their url. We're stuck, I don't believe there is a solution with the current CLI.

Aside: an option in the pkg-pr-new CLI that only packs and doesn't upload would be immensely helpful in debugging these issues locally.

[Aslemammad]

hey! sorry for the late response. we'll def be looking into this.

[Janpot]

Thank you, looks like in the end we managed a workaround for now by removing the publishConfig.directory setting in our built package.json and supplying that path to pkg-pr-new with the --pnpm flag. Ideally this gets fixed eventually though.