Repository navigation
Hidden Node.js Corepack documentation / inconsistent links after Node.js v23.11.0 release #57708
Closed as not planned
Description
Affected URL(s)
- https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html
- https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/
- https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/corepack.html
- https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v23.x/api/corepack.html
Description of the problem
There are multiple link issues:
Entering the Node.js site via https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/ does not list Corepack at all.
https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html
links to the prior Node.js v23.10.0 Corepack documentation instead of showing v23.11.0 documentation.
Edit: This no longer occurs and possibly it was a browser caching issue.
Using the link https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/corepack.html shows the reduced Corepack description, however it is not listed in the table of contents on the left-hand side.
There should be a consistent experience when accessing documentation for Corepack referring to the latest Node.js release.
Activity
MikeMcC399 commentedon Apr 1, 2025
Particularly the link https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/ is problematic because it no longer lists Corepack at all.
MikeMcC399 commentedon Apr 2, 2025
Also, the statement "... Corepack itself will no longer be distributed with future versions of Node.js." is misleading when it is shown in documentation for Node.js
23.x.This implies that Corepack will not be distributed with Node.js
24.x- which is a future version at this time.[-]Node.js Corepack documentation and links after Node.js v23.11.0 release[/-][+]Hidden Node.js Corepack documentation / inconsistent links after Node.js v23.11.0 release[/+]MikeMcC399 commentedon Apr 3, 2025
cc: @aduh95 @trivikr
In case you did not see this.
I'm assuming that the removal of Corepack from https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/ was unintentional
BridgeAR commentedon Apr 3, 2025
This was an intentional change: #57635
MikeMcC399 commentedon Apr 6, 2025
There were multiple problems described in this issue. I put them in one issue because they all apparently were caused by PR #57635.
One of these issues, concerning the incorrect statement in https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v23.x/api/corepack.html "... and Corepack itself will no longer be distributed with future versions of Node.js." has now been picked up by the Node.js team and should be corrected through PR #57747. Corepack continues to be bundled with Node.js up until the EOL of Node.js 24 in April 2028. That was what the Node.js TSC decided with their recent vote.
Other issues, such as the mixed discoverability of Corepack through the main Docs link, remain unaddressed.
It seems inconsistent for the Node.js TSC to have decided to delay dropping Corepack until the Node.js 25 release line, but then to drop the documentation discoverability for lower Node.js release lines, such as Node.js 23, that still include Corepack bundled.
aduh95 commentedon Apr 6, 2025
I don't see the inconsistency, I don't see the issue with lowering Corepack visibility in Node.js docs. We don't have a page for some other bundled projects e.g. npm, and no one cares; we still have the page for Corepack, we won't link to it on 24.x and 22.x, that's on purpose.
MikeMcC399 commentedon Apr 7, 2025
@aduh95
Thank you for your response! The only issue is about the deleted link to https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html in https://nodejs.org/api/index.html. I understand that this was a deliberate decision so I only raise this as a potential source of user confusion without requesting a change. Time will tell whether it is a practical problem or not.
Users directly selecting Node.js
23.x, and later Node.js24.xmay come to the incorrect conclusion that Corepack is no longer bundled with Node.js if they can't find even the shortened Corepack documentation that links to the Corepack repo.If the index Node.js v23.11.0 documentation is selected, Corepack is not listed.
Alternatively, if the user views another version first, such as through the index Node.js v20.19.0 documentation, then selects Corepack, and then changes via Other versions to
23.x, then https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v23.x/api/corepack.html is displayed.MikeMcC399 commentedon Apr 7, 2025
Search engines such as Google find https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html in any case, since https://nodejs.org/robots.txt allows them to crawl
/api/.aduh95 commentedon Apr 7, 2025
Users can come to incorrect conclusions no matter what we do, and tbh I don't really care if they do, I don't see the harm if they believe that Corepack is no longer bundled sooner than it actually is, if anything it will make the actual unbundling less painful for them.
If users wants up-to-date info about Corepack, they should not get it from the Node.js docs – it's been the case for a while,
corepack.mdhas not been so well maintained.I have a PR for fixing that (removing
corepack.md), but it doesn't have consensus yet.