Public libraries within a private monorepo

[NicHaley]

I am looking for some suggestions on how I might structure my project. I am using Turborepo to share UI and config between some libraries (npm packages), as well as a dashboard app.

Ideally, the libraries should be public, while everything else should be private.

The only way I can think to do this is with git-submodules and nested monorepos. Are there any special considerations for this use-case in Turborepo?

[oneezy]

@NicHaley I'm interested in this too. Did you ever get this working on your end?

Any pointers team?
@jaredpalmer @tknickman @nathanhammond @gsoltis @kdy1 @alexkirsz @mehulkar

[EarlGeorge]

all you need is to create private repo as monorepo and publish the only packages that you wish to be public..

[mehulkar]

@NicHaley workspaces that are git submodules is not a case that we test currently, but please try it out and see how it goes. One issue I can think of is that we use git to figure out changed files. It's possible that could not work with submodules. File an issue with a reproduction if you run into anything!

[superdorvil]

Just here to say I am going to try something like this out on my own I am a freelancer and I want to have a structure where all my personal projects are in a monorepo, and all of my client projects are in a their own repos. I want UI components and basic utility library functions to be shared between my monorepo and all of my client projects. Is this possible to do? I am going to try it out and let you guys know how it works out. If the team at Vercel ever starts supporting something like this can you guys just drop a reply to let me know how it works out for you as well.

Thanks.

[oneezy]

hey there @NicHaley @mehulkar @superdorvil ,

I've been working on something since my last comment and made some decent headway

GOAL:
Create a shareable UI package lib (@oneezy/ui) that can be:

1. worked on and demo'd in a public repo (oneezy/ui)
2. npm installed and used in other projects (oneezy/site)
3. worked on in a public or private monorepo as a git submodule (oneezy/projects)

BENEFITS:

• no longer have to copy/paste the same components over and over when using in other projects.
• if using @oneezy/ui and make updates/fixes/features, other projects will inherit them
• provides workflow for having a public repo inside a private repo or monorepo enabling you to take PR's from opensource community

---

Here are 3 the repos that demo the 3 goals mentioned above:

✅ 1. oneezy/ui https://github.com/oneezy/ui
this is the shareable ui lib (atomic design) and uses sveltekit, histoire and tailwind under the hood

• all ui components live inside ./src/lib and use the $ui alias
• ui components are imported like... import { Hero } from '$ui'
• when you add new components/fixes/updates you can run pnpm package to create a package/ dir that's ready to be npm publish'd

❌ 2. oneezy/site https://github.com/oneezy/site
this is a broken test site that's intended to demo the npm installed version of @oneezy/ui.

From what I can tell it's not working because @oneezy/ui > package.json isn't exporting the production paths properly. for example, it's looking for ./src/lib/index.js (dev) instead of ./index.js (production) ... a fix is in progress but if anyone has some input i'm all ears.

• all ui components live inside node_modules/@oneezy/ui
• ui components are imported like... import { Hero } from '@oneezy/ui'
• this was only created to demo the bare bones of what was needed to import @oneezy/ui from npm and also how to include @oneezy/ui/app.css, @oneezy/ui/tailwind.config.cjs, and @oneezy/ui/postcss.config.cjs into your project

✅ 3. oneezy/projects https://github.com/oneezy/projects
this is a barebones monorepo (turborepo) consisting of 2 apps:

• apps/+ui (this is the oneezy/ui git submodule repo)
• apps/site (this is the oneezy/site repo but was copied/pasted and slightly modified to be a workspace)

note:
the apps/+ui workspace imports components with the $ui alias
the apps/site workspace imports components with @oneezy/ui alias

To run a dev a server and automatically open up the @oneezy/ui and @apps/site apps:

1. git clone --recursive https://github.com/oneezy/projects.git
2. cd projects
3. pnpm i
4. pnpm dev

---

I welcome any feedback or PR's w/ these guys! Not sure if I'm using the best practices here but am open to suggestions :)

[cm-datrics]

This is really interesting, have you tried deploying via vercel hooked up to GitHub?

Intrigued to know if Vercel would automatically init the submodules etc to get the latest dependency

[oneezy]

sorry for the late response! yes, that's exactly how i used it (pushing to github and vercel builds). im sure the automatic init is possible but haven't set it up. i took a long break on working on this stuff due to some family issues however ive recently been back at it..so i do plan on running a lot more tests soon

[JulianKingman]

Doing this on a small project, it feels like a super-power! I have a turborepo that I'm working on, and a 3rd party package forked and submodules into the packages folder. Updates are colocated, and at the end I'll have changes to submit as a PR upstream.

[bitofbreeze]

I personally use copybara to copy my public packages to their own repos. There are github actions that make the integration pretty easy.

[oneezy]

i just looked into it and it looked promising but it requires java and that was a big turn-off for me unfortunately