Backlog rfcs/backlog/rfc-bun-pm.md

bun pm — catalogs / workspaces for monorepos

Moved deferred → backlog — the named trigger fired. The 2026-05-27 deferral

Promoted to backlog (2026-05-31)

Moved deferred → backlog — the named trigger fired. The 2026-05-27 deferral rested entirely on "no monorepo spec exists." That is now stale: [[cli/18-create-patties-redesign]] (reviewed 2026-05-31) added a --monorepo flag scaffolding a Bun workspace (apps/* + packages/*) on bun --filter + catalogs, and [[framework/26-monorepo-react-resolution]] + the just-encoded [[framework/27-task-runner-cache]] build on it. The trigger the RFC named — "the scaffold grows a --monorepo flag" — has happened.

Workspaces/catalogs are now used by spec 18 at scaffold time, so that slice is effectively in flight. The genuinely-unencoded backlog work is the rest of the bun pm surface: bun pm pack / bun pm version and catalog management ergonomics (not just the initial stamp). Parked here until the monorepo story needs lifecycle management beyond scaffolding. Original deferral verdict below.

Review verdict (2026-05-27)

Reject for v1; keep as future-work RFC. No monorepo spec exists in patties. Templates are single-package by design (spec 05). Real demand for multi-package patties projects hasn't materialized, and the pnpm + Turborepo combination is mature enough that users who need it today can use those directly without framework involvement.

Revisit when:

  • The scaffold spec ([[cli/draft/09-create-patties-dx]]) grows a --monorepo flag, OR
  • A real patties monorepo emerges (multiple apps in one repo, shared patties.config.ts snippets, shared design-system package).

Re-evaluation trigger: A user opening an issue asking "how do I do a monorepo?" is the natural signal. Until then, no hypothetical-future design.

No spec changes. File preserved as status: deferred.

Summary

bun pm pack / bun pm version / workspace + catalog management. Bun's built-in monorepo tooling, comparable to pnpm + Turborepo.

Motivation

Bun ships workspaces and catalogs as a CLI surface. A patties monorepo story would naturally lean on these rather than pulling in pnpm + Turborepo. Hypothetical until a real monorepo materializes.

Trade-offs

  • Speccing without a user means designing the wrong API. Multi-app patties projects could take many shapes (multi-app with shared config, app + shared UI package, app + shared agent-platform, etc.). Without a real use case, we'd pick the wrong default.

Open questions

  • Does the scaffold know about workspaces, or do users wire them manually?
  • How do shared patties/config files get loaded across packages?
  • Build orchestration — does patties need Turborepo-style caching, or is bun run --filter enough?