Feature Request: Enable corepack by default

[danreeves]

Describe the Feature Request
Enable corepack by default

Is your feature request related to a particular problem?
The version of yarn in the image is v1. The recommended way to install latest versions of yarn is via corepack. Corepack is not enabled so you need to add an extra sudo corepack enable yarn in each job you run a yarn command.

See more:

• https://yarnpkg.com/getting-started/install
• https://yarnpkg.com/corepack

How will this feature request benefit CircleCI jobs using this image?
It will allow users to install yarn in the recommended fashion and remove extra command they need to run in each job. It also will allow users to de-duplicate package manager version info.

Describe the solution you would like to see
Corepack should be enabled by default. Running yarn should use the version specified in the package.json packageManager property.

Describe alternatives you have considered

• npm i -g yarn@[my-version]
• sudo corepack enable yarn@[my-version]

[alebelcor]

This would be great. It'll make using modern Yarn and pnpm (even npm) a breeze. And, at the same time, free you guys (CircleCI) from maintaing any Node.js package managers. A win win.

In case anyone is interested, as a workaround for now, I'm manually enabling Corepack just before installing dependencies:

- run:
  name: Enable Corepack
  command: corepack enable --install-directory="/home/circleci/bin"
- run:
  name: Install dependencies
  command: yarn install

[MikeMcC399]

Corepack will not be is not bundled with Node.js from release line Node.js 25 onwards. See https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/corepack.html

Corepack also remains defined as Experimental by the Node.js organization

I suggest that enabling Corepack should not be changed to default for cimg-node and should remain an individual choice for those needing it. If Corepack were to be enabled, it would be a breaking change. The Node.js Technical Steering Committee voted not to enable it by default for the remaining supported Node.js release lines (20, 22 & 24) that still bundle Corepack together with Node.js.

Currently, if you install the latest Corepack version using npm install corepack@latest --global, it will however be enabled by default.