The basic issue here is that the error message given by pnpm is misleading when running on a CI; indicating that the lock file has not been updated after changing package.json. When then subsequently running pnpm install locally there are no changes/diff, so it is up to date. The real error is something related to the lock file, but it is not that it is out of sync with the package.json (see details).

The error message sent us on a wild goose chase for quite a while, as we were unable to reproduce the issue, until I found #2378 and checked the source code, which made me understand what was different on the TeamCity server.

Do note that the warning you get when installing locally does make more sense, but not enough for us to understand that the version number was off 😃 "... and failed compatibility check. Excluding it from installation." should rather be something like "Cannot resolve chokidar-cli version 30000.0.0. Excluding from installation".

pnpm version: 6.3 - 6.20 (@latest) (all versions tried)

Code to reproduce the issue:

Create a temporary dir with a package.json of this content:

{
  "name": "test-optional",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "optionalDependencies": {
    "chokidar-cli": "^30000.0.0"
  }
}

See that you get the following output when installing it:

# install the deps, creating the lock file
$ npx pnpm i
npx: installerte 1 på 1.751s
info: chokidar-cli@^30000.0.0 is an optional dependency and failed compatibility check. Excluding it from installation.
Already up-to-date

# verify error message is wrong when CI=true
$ CI=true npx pnpm i
npx: installerte 1 på 0.937s
Lockfile is up-to-date, resolution step is skipped
 ERR_PNPM_OUTDATED_LOCKFILE  Cannot install with "frozen-lockfile" because pnpm-lock.yaml is not up-to-date with package.json

Expected behavior:

An error message telling me the version of the chokidar-cli package is not resolvable.

Actual behavior:

 ERR_PNPM_OUTDATED_LOCKFILE  Cannot install with "frozen-lockfile" because pnpm-lock.yaml is not up-to-date with package.json

Additional information:

• node -v prints: 14.18 (16 also tried)
• macOS and Linux tried