pnpm 11: workspace pkg building via a sibling workspace CLI bin fails (bin never linked)

[natemoo-re]

Problem

Repos using the reusable build workflows (preview.yml, publish.yml) run pnpm install followed by pnpm run build. In a self-hosting monorepo where one workspace package's build script invokes another workspace package's bin — e.g. an example whose build is clink build, where clink's bin is ./dist/bin.js — the build step fails under pnpm 11:

examples/basic build: sh: clink: command not found
[ERR_PNPM_RECURSIVE_RUN_FIRST_FAIL] @example/basic@ build: `clink build`
[ELIFECYCLE] Command failed with exit code 1.

Why

At pnpm install time the CLI package has not been built yet, so its bin target (packages/<cli>/dist/bin.js) doesn't exist. pnpm 11 refuses to create the .bin/<cli> symlink for a missing target and only warns:

[WARN] Failed to create bin at .../examples/basic/node_modules/.bin/clink.
ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '.../packages/clink/dist/bin.js'

The subsequent pnpm run build builds the CLI (topological order), but the bin is never relinked. pnpm appears to cache "no bin" from the first resolution: after the CLI is built, neither a plain pnpm install nor pnpm install --force recreates the symlink — both report Already up to date and skip linking. So every downstream package that shells out to the CLI bin fails.

This differs from pnpm 10, where the install→build sequence in these workflows worked.

Impact

Any repo on these workflows with a workspace package that builds by invoking a sibling workspace bin. It's latent — CI only hits it once the install+build path actually runs to the dependent packages.

Repro

• pnpm 11.18.0, fresh pnpm install && pnpm run build.
• Concrete instance: bombshell-dev/clink#43 (see the preview runs on that PR before the workaround commit).