Fixing pnpm copyfile error in VS Code Dev Container

Problem

While developing in a VS Code dev container, running pnpm install throws the following copyfile  error:

 ERR_PNPM_ENOENT  ENOENT: no such file or directory, copyfile '/workspaces/.pnpm-store/v3/files/1f/37fdd340ec3e8b464af6c4d30bbb126f2ddf2af71779c8a799a0b7c2fa99d566dce68a3d15ca3f54bc766e02c254ca521e3fce66b4de7540aff593b554c8b2' -> '/workspaces/<project_name>/node_modules/.pnpm/[email protected]/node_modules/shikiji_tmp_930/dist/langs/cmake.d.mts'

Why

This happens if the dev container is running as a non root user and path to the pnpm store is in the root user directory instead of the user running the container.

Solution

Move the pnpm store into the home directory of the user running the container instead of the root user. In this case, I’m using the node user so we can add the following the dockerfile to prevent access errors:

pnpm config set store-dir /home/node/.local/share/pnpm/store

See the working version here.