Scarab Field Test #021 — pnpm Self-Upgrade No-Manifest Boundary

Target: pnpm/pnpm Issue: pnpm/pnpm#12240 PR: pnpm/pnpm#12301 Public branch: https://github.com/scarab-systems/pnpm/tree/fix/deps-status-no-manifest Latest pushed commit: cb68ac1af0dcffbe4fb607a10b0df2046d2490ba This field test targeted a pnpm command-routing failure where pnpm self-upgrade could fail outside a project directory with: ERR_PNPM_NO_PKG_MANIFEST The issue looked simple at the surface: a global/self command should not require a project manifest just because the current working directory is not inside a package. But the repair boundary was more specific than “ignore missing manifest.” The problem was in the dependency-status verification path. When dependency status was unavailable because there was no project manifest, the command could fall through into the auto-install path. That made a self-upgrade/global-style command behave as if it needed a local project manifest. Failure shape The failing behavior was: pnpm self-upgrade run outside a project directory dependency status cannot be established from a project manifest the command path falls into install/manifest expectations result: ERR_PNPM_NO_PKG_MANIFEST That is the wrong ownership boundary. A self-upgrade command should not inherit project-manifest preconditions when there is no local project context. Boundary The boundary here is: global/self command execution versus project dependency-status verification Dependency-status verification can be useful when a command is operating inside a project. But when there is no project manifest and the command is not recursive/all-projects, “dependency status unavailable” should not automatically mean “try to auto-install project dependencies.” There are two different cases: Dependency status is unavailable because there is no project manifest. Dependency status is unexpectedly unavailable even though a root project manifest exists. Those cases should not behave the same. The repair preserves that distinction. What changed The patch updates: exec/commands/src