Hidden Node.js Corepack documentation / inconsistent links after Node.js v23.11.0 release

[MikeMcC399]

Affected URL(s)

• https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html
• https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/
• https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/corepack.html
• https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v23.x/api/corepack.html

Description of the problem

There are multiple link issues:

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Entering the Node.js site via https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/ does not list Corepack at all.

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https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html

links to the prior Node.js v23.10.0 Corepack documentation instead of showing v23.11.0 documentation.
Edit: This no longer occurs and possibly it was a browser caching issue.

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Using the link https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/corepack.html shows the reduced Corepack description, however it is not listed in the table of contents on the left-hand side.

There should be a consistent experience when accessing documentation for Corepack referring to the latest Node.js release.

[MikeMcC399]

Particularly the link https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/ is problematic because it no longer lists Corepack at all.

[MikeMcC399]

Also, the statement "... Corepack itself will no longer be distributed with future versions of Node.js." is misleading when it is shown in documentation for Node.js 23.x.

This implies that Corepack will not be distributed with Node.js 24.x - which is a future version at this time.

[MikeMcC399]

cc: @aduh95 @trivikr

In case you did not see this.

I'm assuming that the removal of Corepack from https://nodejs.org/docs/latest/api/ was unintentional

[BridgeAR]

This was an intentional change: #57635

[MikeMcC399]

There were multiple problems described in this issue. I put them in one issue because they all apparently were caused by PR #57635.

One of these issues, concerning the incorrect statement in https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v23.x/api/corepack.html "... and Corepack itself will no longer be distributed with future versions of Node.js." has now been picked up by the Node.js team and should be corrected through PR #57747. Corepack continues to be bundled with Node.js up until the EOL of Node.js 24 in April 2028. That was what the Node.js TSC decided with their recent vote.

Other issues, such as the mixed discoverability of Corepack through the main Docs link, remain unaddressed.

It seems inconsistent for the Node.js TSC to have decided to delay dropping Corepack until the Node.js 25 release line, but then to drop the documentation discoverability for lower Node.js release lines, such as Node.js 23, that still include Corepack bundled.

[aduh95]

I don't see the inconsistency, I don't see the issue with lowering Corepack visibility in Node.js docs. We don't have a page for some other bundled projects e.g. npm, and no one cares; we still have the page for Corepack, we won't link to it on 24.x and 22.x, that's on purpose.

[MikeMcC399]

@aduh95

Thank you for your response! The only issue is about the deleted link to https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html in https://nodejs.org/api/index.html. I understand that this was a deliberate decision so I only raise this as a potential source of user confusion without requesting a change. Time will tell whether it is a practical problem or not.

Users directly selecting Node.js 23.x, and later Node.js 24.x may come to the incorrect conclusion that Corepack is no longer bundled with Node.js if they can't find even the shortened Corepack documentation that links to the Corepack repo.

If the index Node.js v23.11.0 documentation is selected, Corepack is not listed.

Alternatively, if the user views another version first, such as through the index Node.js v20.19.0 documentation, then selects Corepack, and then changes via Other versions to 23.x, then https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v23.x/api/corepack.html is displayed.

[MikeMcC399]

Search engines such as Google find https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html in any case, since https://nodejs.org/robots.txt allows them to crawl /api/.

[aduh95]

Users can come to incorrect conclusions no matter what we do, and tbh I don't really care if they do, I don't see the harm if they believe that Corepack is no longer bundled sooner than it actually is, if anything it will make the actual unbundling less painful for them.
If users wants up-to-date info about Corepack, they should not get it from the Node.js docs – it's been the case for a while, corepack.md has not been so well maintained.

Search engines such as Google find https://nodejs.org/api/corepack.html in any case, since https://nodejs.org/robots.txt allows them to crawl /api/.

I have a PR for fixing that (removing corepack.md), but it doesn't have consensus yet.