[Bug]: `public_hoist_pattern` behaves different to `public_hoist_pattern` in `pnpm`

[fa93hws]

What happened?

public_hoist_pattern behaves different to public_hoist_pattern in pnpm.

rules_js behavior

Take examples in rules_js repository as an example (I'm at acb0f7efe9be99b4bb4766b3bd13064b6f891b59), where ms is listed in the public_hoist_pattern. What left in the sandbox becomes the following after bazel test examples/npm_deps:test6 --sandbox_debug is ran.

It's clear that ms is hoisted to <runfile>/examples/npm_deps/node_modules. However, it's not hoisted to <runfile>/node_modules. (I tried set "ms@2.1.3" to ["examples/npm_deps", ""] or just [""] in public_hoist_packages but that doesn't make any difference).

pnpm behavior

Running pnpm install in rules_js repository root gives the following node_modules structure:

It hoists the ms packages under <repo_root>/node_modules/ms instead of <repo_root>/examples/npm_deps/node_modules.

Config to mimic the pnpm behavior

After a few try&error when writing this issue, I finally managed to get what I want, so in order to mimic node_modules hoisting behavior in pnpm, "ms@2.1.3" need to be configured as an array that contains [""], and use //:node_modules/ms instead of //examples/npm_deps:node_modules/ms.

And here is what confuse me

The problem I have is the node_modules resolution when a plugin comes into play and hence I got the doc.

Note that public_hoist_packages affects the layout of the node_modules tree, but you still need to depend on that hoisted package, e.g. with deps = [":node_modules/hoisted_pkg"]. Continuing the example:

Since it says :node_modules/hoisted_pkg instead of //:node_modules/hoisted_pkg, I believe it will do the hoisting just like what pnpm does, and the doc of public_hoisted_packages implies so as well. https://docs.aspect.build/rulesets/aspect_rules_js/docs/npm_translate_lock#public_hoist_packages

This is similar to setting https://pnpm.io/npmrc#public-hoist-pattern in an .npmrc file outside of Bazel, however, wild-cards are not yet supported and npm_translate_lock will fail if there are multiple versions of a package that are to be hoisted.

Question

So first of all, I'm not sure what's the expected behavior of public_hoist_packages? Should it do what pnpm does, to hoist the dependency into the root node_modules, or like what it is now, to hoist the dependency to the specific package?

If the later is the case, maybe the doc can be improved to be less confusing?

Version

Development (host) and target OS/architectures: MacOS (pretty irrelevant I think)

Output of bazel --version:

> bazel --version
aspect 5.9.25

Version of the Aspect rules, or other relevant rules from your WORKSPACE or MODULE.bazel file: "0.0.0", as I managed to reproduce it in rules_js's repository. It's latest main at acb0f7efe9be99b4bb4766b3bd13064b6f891b59

Language(s) and/or frameworks involved: Nothing.

How to reproduce

No response

Any other information?

No response