Railpack's pnpm detection always uses --frozen-lockfile, which cannot be overridden. This breaks deployments for pnpm monorepos where the service's Root Directory differs from the lockfile location.

Environment:

• Railpack 0.15.3
• pnpm 10.17.0
• Monorepo with Root Directory =

frontend/  

and

pnpm-lock.yaml at repo root

Problem: When Railway's Root Directory is set to a subdirectory (e.g.,

frontend/

), Railpack copies both the subdirectory's package.json and the root pnpm-lock.yaml, then runs:

pnpm install --frozen-lockfile --prefer-offline

This fails with

ERR_PNPM_OUTDATED_LOCKFILE

because pnpm interprets the workspace lockfile differently when run from a subdirectory context.

What We Tried (all failed with Railpack):

1. Creating frontend/.npmrc with

frozen-lockfile=false  

- CLI args override config files

2. Using

installCommand  

in

railway.toml - Railpack ignores this setting

3. Regenerating the lockfile multiple ways - Railpack's caching causes stale package.json to be used

Workaround: We had to switch to NIXPACKS with a custom install command:

toml

# frontend/nixpacks.toml

[phases.install]

cmds = ["pnpm install --no-frozen-lockfile"]

Feature Request: Add a config option to Railpack to disable

--frozen-lockfile

, such as:

• Environment variable:

RAILPACK_PNPM_NO_FROZEN_LOCKFILE=true  

• Or config in railway.toml:

frozenLockfile = false