Verify latest release

• I verified that the issue exists in the latest pnpm release

pnpm version

11.5.2

Which area(s) of pnpm are affected? (leave empty if unsure)

self-upgrade

Reproduction steps

1. Open a terminal in any directory that does not have a package.json (e.g. the user's home directory ~)
2. Run pnpm self-upgrade

Describe the Bug

pnpm self-upgrade fails with ERR_PNPM_NO_PKG_MANIFEST when executed from a directory that does not contain a package.json.

[ERR_PNPM_NO_PKG_MANIFEST] No package.json found in /Users/htkim
[ERROR] Command failed with exit code 1: node .../pnpm.mjs install

Looking at the stack trace, self-upgrade internally triggers runDepsStatusCheck, which calls pnpm install in the current working directory. Since there is no package.json in the home directory, it fails.

at runDepsStatusCheck (pnpm.mjs:220133)
  at runPnpmCli (pnpm.mjs:218401)
  at spawnSubprocessSync (pnpm.mjs:38200)

self-upgrade should not require a package.json in the current directory — it is upgrading the pnpm binary itself, not a project's dependencies.

Workaround

Use npm install -g pnpm@latest instead.

Expected Behavior

pnpm self-upgrade completes successfully regardless of the current working directory.

Which Node.js version are you using?

v22.17.1

Which operating systems have you used?

• macOS
• Windows
• Linux

If your OS is a Linux based, which one it is? (Include the version if relevant)

macOS 26.4.1 (Darwin 25.4.0)

Related issues

• Self upgrade does not work if the project is in the user's home and uses pnpm workspaces #9778 — similar issue when home directory contains pnpm-workspace.yaml