Introduce "task dependency" into pnpm's workspace runner

[kenotron]

lage and turbo both support pipelining via a separate "task dependency" definition. I see that we're beginning to build workspace-wide task running into package (workspace) managers like pnpm. Having this information allows us all to achieve really amazing speeds in build/test/bundle, etc.

See this page for some of the capabilities that one can have:
https://microsoft.github.io/lage/guide/levels.html

Now, I wouldn't expect pnpm to implement all this, but I do wonder if some of the logic or even the configuration can be standardized. Say: how do we do incremental build caches (which can actually replace TS proj references), scoping builds, and pipelining.

[zkochan]

pnpm might be able to more effectively download the cache

[zkochan]

I have tried to setup lage in the pnpm monorepo and there is an issue right from the start. It cannot work with a cycle in the dependencies (even if the cycle is through devDependencies).

[gluxon]

lage and turbo are both really interesting. Thanks for linking to them.

Just to add another data point, my org's team chose Gradle to achieve package-parallel TypeScript, babel, webpack builds. I think the killer feature there is Gradle's build scan feature, which allows you to dive into unexpected cache misses/hits with a web GUI. It's really nice to get a web UI telling you "Hey, we had to rebuild this package because this dependency in node_modules was missing (or a different version)."

I think the "build scan" feature of Gradle is what lage, turbo, and rush appear to be behind on. I suspect turbo or rush will implement that sooner or later, which makes me think this sort of functionality might be a feature creep for pnpm? I worry about wasted effort in pnpm to catch up to tools that are getting more dedicated development in this area.