Self-checks

• I have searched the issue tracker for existing reports — none mention verbatimSymlinks, absolute symlinks, or /home/runner in tarballs
• I am running the latest stable version (verified against v11.0.0 and v11.0.1)

Subject of the issue

The pnpm standalone-executable release tarballs published to GitHub Releases (pnpm-{darwin,linux}-{x64,arm64}.tar.gz for v11.0.0 and v11.0.1) contain four broken absolute symlinks under dist/node_modules/.bin/ whose targets point at the GitHub Actions runner's filesystem path, not anywhere on the user's machine:

$ curl -sL https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/releases/download/v11.0.1/pnpm-darwin-arm64.tar.gz | tar -tvz | grep '^l'
lrwxrwxrwx  0 runner 1001  0 Apr 29 17:07 dist/node_modules/.bin/node-gyp    -> /home/runner/work/pnpm/pnpm/pnpm/dist/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js
lrwxrwxrwx  0 runner 1001  0 Apr 29 17:07 dist/node_modules/.bin/node-which  -> /home/runner/work/pnpm/pnpm/pnpm/dist/node_modules/which/bin/which.js
lrwxrwxrwx  0 runner 1001  0 Apr 29 17:07 dist/node_modules/.bin/nopt        -> /home/runner/work/pnpm/pnpm/pnpm/dist/node_modules/nopt/bin/nopt.js
lrwxrwxrwx  0 runner 1001  0 Apr 29 17:07 dist/node_modules/.bin/semver      -> /home/runner/work/pnpm/pnpm/pnpm/dist/node_modules/semver/bin/semver.js

Lenient extractors (system tar, install.sh, npm i -g @pnpm/exe) silently extract these as dangling symlinks; nothing at runtime ever traverses them, so the bug is invisible during normal use. Strict extractors that perform path-traversal validation (e.g. hermit) refuse to extract, breaking installation:

fatal:hermit: .../dist/node_modules/.bin/node-gyp: illegal symlink target
"/home/runner/work/pnpm/pnpm/pnpm/dist/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js"
(resolves to /home/runner/work/... which is outside ...)

Expected behaviour

The symlinks under dist/node_modules/.bin/ should be relative (e.g. ../node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js), so they remain valid at any extraction location and don't leak the build host's filesystem layout.

Actual behaviour

They are absolute paths into the GitHub Actions runner's working directory (/home/runner/work/pnpm/pnpm/pnpm/...), which:

1. Are dangling on every user's machine (a supply-chain smell)
2. Cause strict tarball extractors to refuse the archive
3. Leak build-host paths into a public artifact

Root cause

pnpm/artifacts/exe/scripts/build-artifacts.ts#L48:

fs.cpSync(distSrc, distDest, { recursive: true })

Node's fs.cpSync defaults to verbatimSymlinks: false, which resolves relative symlinks into absolute paths at the source filesystem location during the copy. This is a well-known behaviour, see nodejs/node#41693 and the Node.js docs:

verbatimSymlinks <boolean> When true, path resolution for symlinks will be skipped. Default: false.

So a relative symlink in the source pnpm checkout (dist/node_modules/.bin/node-gyp -> ../node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js) becomes absolute (-> /home/runner/work/pnpm/pnpm/pnpm/dist/node_modules/node-gyp/bin/node-gyp.js) in the destination directory that gets archived.

Steps to reproduce

curl -sL https://github.com/pnpm/pnpm/releases/download/v11.0.1/pnpm-darwin-arm64.tar.gz \
  | tar -tvz | grep '^l'

(Same result for pnpm-darwin-x64, pnpm-linux-x64, pnpm-linux-arm64 archives in both v11.0.0 and v11.0.1.)

Spot-check a v10.x release for comparison: v10.x ships bare binaries (no tarball, no dist/ directory in the artifact), so this regression is specific to v11+.

Suggested fix

One-line change in pnpm/artifacts/exe/scripts/build-artifacts.ts:

- fs.cpSync(distSrc, distDest, { recursive: true })
+ fs.cpSync(distSrc, distDest, { recursive: true, verbatimSymlinks: true })

Would also recommend adding a regression check to the release workflow that walks the packaged dist/ and fails if any symlink target is absolute or resolves outside the archive root.

I'd be happy to send a PR if that's useful.

Environment

• pnpm version: 11.0.0, 11.0.1 (release tarballs)
• Node.js: N/A (issue is in build artifacts, not runtime)
• Tested extraction with: hermit (rejects), system tar (extracts as dangling)

🤖 Issue drafted with Amp assistance after reproducing the failure mode and tracing the root cause.