Turborepo

Turborepo

Overview

Turborepo is a high-performance build system for JavaScript/​TypeScript monorepos that intelligently caches task outputs, parallelizes execution across CPU cores, and ensures teams only rebuild what has changed. It integrates with npm, yarn, and pnpm workspaces.

Instructions

• When setting up a monorepo, define tasks in turbo.json with dependsOn for ordering, use ^ prefix for topological dependencies (e.g., "dependsOn": ["^build"]), and specify outputs for cacheable artifacts.
• When configuring caching, define outputs arrays for each task (["dist/​**", ".next/​**"]), list all build-affecting environment variables in env or globalEnv, and set up Remote Cache for cross-developer sharing.
• When filtering workspaces, use --filter=@app/​web to target specific packages, --filter=...[HEAD~1] for changed packages, and turbo run build --graph to visualize the dependency graph.
• When optimizing Docker builds, use turbo prune --scope=@app/​web to generate a minimal Docker context containing only the targeted package and its dependencies.
• When setting up CI/​CD, enable Remote Cache for cross-PR cache sharing, use --dry-run=json for pipeline analysis, and leverage incremental builds that only rebuild packages affected by PR changes.
• When organizing shared packages, create focused internal packages (@repo/​ui, @repo/​db, @repo/​auth) with shared tsconfig and ESLint configs.

Examples

Example 1: Set up a new Turborepo monorepo

User request: "Initialize a monorepo with a Next.js app and shared UI library"

Actions:

1. Set up pnpm workspace with apps/​web and packages/​ui directories
2. Configure turbo.json with build, dev, lint, and typecheck tasks
3. Define task dependencies and cache outputs for each task
4. Create shared tsconfig base in packages/​tsconfig

Output: A monorepo with parallel builds, intelligent caching, and shared configuration.

Example 2: Optimize Docker builds for deployment

User request: "Create a Dockerfile for deploying one service from our Turborepo monorepo"

Actions:

1. Run turbo prune --scope=@app/​api to generate minimal context
2. Create multi-stage Dockerfile using the pruned output
3. Install dependencies and build only the targeted package
4. Configure cache mounts for faster rebuilds

Output: A lean Docker image containing only the service and its dependencies, not the full monorepo.

Guidelines

• Always define outputs for cacheable tasks; use empty outputs: [] for side-effect-only tasks like lint.
• List all environment variables in env or globalEnv that affect build output.
• Use ^ prefix in dependsOn for tasks that consume dependency outputs (build, typecheck).
• Keep internal packages small and focused: @repo/​ui, @repo/​db, @repo/​auth.
• Use turbo prune for Docker builds; never copy the entire monorepo into a container.
• Set up Remote Cache in CI for cross-developer and cross-PR cache sharing.