---
topic: building it
status: accepted
date: 2026-06-04
deciders: jochen
reconstructed: true
---

# 14. No workspace — each module is a standalone package consuming published dependencies

> Reconstructed after the fact from the evidence cited below.

## Context

Modules depend on each other, above all on the shared library every module builds against.
A workspace was the obvious way to express that: sibling packages, resolved locally, one
install at the root.

It produced a divergence that is worth stating precisely, because it is not obvious. In
development, a workspace member importing a sibling resolves to that sibling's **local source**.
In the pipeline, each module is built alone, from a clone, without its siblings present — so
the same import resolves to the **published version**. The two environments were therefore
building different code from identical source, and the failure appeared only in the pipeline,
in a module that had not been touched.

## Considered options

1. **Keep the workspace and make the pipeline replicate it** — clone every module, build the
   graph. Rejected: it makes every build a whole-repository build, which is the cost the
   per-module pipeline exists to avoid, and it does not extend to modules in their own
   repositories.
2. **Keep the workspace and pin siblings to published versions.** Rejected as the worst of
   both: the workspace's local resolution silently overrides the pin, so the divergence
   remains while looking solved.
3. **No workspace. Every module is standalone and consumes published dependencies.** Chosen.

## Decision

There is no workspace. Each module is an independent package that declares its dependencies
and consumes them from the private registry, including the mesh's own shared library.

A cross-package change is therefore two steps: publish the producer, then consume it. The
pipeline does the first on push and resolves the levels so that a module always builds against
its dependencies' freshly published versions.

## Consequences

- Development and the pipeline resolve imports identically. The divergence is gone by
  construction rather than by discipline.
- A module in its own repository is not a special case. It builds exactly as a module in the
  monorepo does — which is what makes [ADR 0015](0015-applications-live-in-their-own-repository.md)
  cheap.
- A cross-package change costs a publish-and-consume round trip. This is the real price, paid
  on every shared-library change.
- There is no repository-wide install and no repository-wide build. Anything that assumed one
  broke, and one thing that assumed one has stayed broken: the end-to-end pipeline harness has
  not built since this decision landed. See
  [`04-ISSUES/005`](../04-ISSUES/005-pipeline-test-harness-unbuildable/00-report.md).

## References

- `fix(noxflow): kill npm workspace, restore encryption inside PgAdminRepo` (#240),
  2026-06-04. The reason is recorded in the root package manifest, which still carries the
  note explaining why no workspace exists.
- The divergence it fixed is named there: workspace members importing each other resolved to
  local unbuilt source in the pipeline.