Problem

Every desktop ./dev after an upstream sync fails at the frontend step:

• Compiling frontend: [ERR_PNPM_ABORTED_REMOVE_MODULES_DIR_NO_TTY] Aborted removal of modules directory due to no TTY
[ERROR] Command failed with exit code 1: pnpm install
  at runDepsStatusCheck (.../pnpm.mjs)

Root cause

Two layers:

1. pnpm 11 verify-deps-before-run. frontend:install (pnpm install) succeeds, but frontend:build (pnpm build) re-verifies deps before running the script (runDepsStatusCheck). After a sync the lockfile changed, so it decides node_modules is stale, triggers a reinstall that wants to remove node_modules, and — spawned by wails dev with no TTY — aborts.

2. The guard in dev never applied. dev exported PNPM_CONFIG_CONFIRM_MODULES_PURGE=false, but pnpm reads the npm-convention npm_config_*, not PNPM_CONFIG_*:

   env set	pnpm config get confirm-modules-purge
   PNPM_CONFIG_CONFIRM_MODULES_PURGE=false	undefined ❌
   npm_config_confirm_modules_purge=false	false ✅

   So the purge/age guards were dead and the abort surfaced on every sync.

Fix

• desktop/frontend/.npmrc (committed, TTY/CI/env-agnostic — the real fix; pnpm reads a project .npmrc when a package.json is present, verified):
  • verify-deps-before-run=false — pnpm build no longer re-checks/reinstalls; frontend:install already did.
  • confirm-modules-purge=false — any purge proceeds silently instead of aborting headless.
• dev — fix the env-var form to npm_config_* so the original headless intent works. minimum_release_age=0 stays dev-only (not committed globally, so the supply-chain age gate is unchanged for everyone else).

Test

cd desktop/frontend && rm -rf node_modules && pnpm install && cd ../.. && ./dev — frontend compiles, no purge abort. The .npmrc settings were validated against pnpm directly (npm_config_* honored, PNPM_CONFIG_* ignored; project .npmrc read with package.json present).