Install and build only the workspace packages a job uses

Scope dependency installation and builds to the package or lane under test, including its actual dependencies.

Prompt

Evaluate and apply this CI technique to my repository: Install and build only the workspace packages a job uses.

Scope dependency installation and builds to the package or lane under test, including its actual dependencies.

Read the technique and its source-backed company examples: https://starsling.dev/ci-playbooks/techniques/scope-workspace-builds.md

Inspect this repository’s CI workflows, build and test commands, dependencies, and recent run timings. Identify where this technique applies and explain the expected benefit using this repository’s evidence.
Measure a baseline from recent comparable runs: elapsed time, queue time, runner minutes and failures where available. If data is unavailable, say what cannot be measured.
Compare relevant company approaches, checking prerequisites, platform differences and tradeoffs. Rank applicable options by evidence, fit and measurable opportunity; do not present company results as predictions for this repo.
Recommend the smallest safe change, show what checks and fallback paths remain, and ASK ME WHICH CHANGE TO APPROVE BEFORE EDITING ANY FILES.
Only after approval, work on a new feature branch, make one reversible change, and open a reviewable pull request. Never merge or push to a default or protected branch.
Keep required checks, test coverage, deployment and release behavior intact. Validate the change and compare equivalent runs where possible; report limitations and what should be monitored after merge.

View all playbooks

How companies used this technique

Read what each company changed and follow the original sources.

Install or build only the workspace packages this step needs

Linear restricted its API test install to the API package and its dependencies, which cut pnpm install from 44-73 seconds to 16-18 seconds, then applied the same filter to API-adjacent jobs. In its public SDK, the release-preparation job builds only the package schema generation imports before updating the schema.

Use it when: A job’s dependency closure is smaller than the workspace.
Before applying it: Include transitive dependencies and generated prerequisites.

Build only the dependencies the test consumes

The memory test build replaced the entire stores wildcard with libsql, pg and upstash while retaining its other required packages. Another change moved a docs-server build out of the changed-test gate.

Use it when: A narrow test job pays for unrelated workspace builds.
Before applying it: Trace transitive dependencies and generated artifacts. Before moving a build out of a gate, confirm another required check still runs it.

Give each CI lane a defined package set

The app libraries ran everything in ci.yml in sequence, once per Node version. Shopify/shopify-app-js#2777 split that into a lint job and three package-family jobs that run in parallel; each builds its own dependency closure with pnpm filters and tests only its family. The pattern match is partial: the filters scope each lane, and the speedup comes from running the lanes in parallel.

The PR reports CI running in about 5 minutes against about 11 before. Source

Use it when: A monorepo runs one long sequential job that builds and tests every package on every run.
Before applying it: A new package has to be added to a lane, and each lane repeats install and setup.

How companies used this technique

Install or build only the workspace packages this step needs

Build only the dependencies the test consumes

Give each CI lane a defined package set

Related techniques

Reduce the setup floor before increasing shard count

Package once, and build full installers after merge

Skip jobs whose inputs have not changed

Company Playbooks

Related guides

Cancel superseded CI runs

Build and test only what changed

Filter workflows by changed files

Cut CI queue time