Turborepo

Turborepo transforms monorepo development through caching and parallel execution. Built by Vercel, it accelerates builds, tests, and development workflows while maintaining the advantages of keeping related projects in a single repository.

Monorepo Architecture

A monorepo consolidates multiple projects into one Git repository. This architecture provides:

Atomic Changes - Updates to APIs and their consumers happen in single commits. Breaking changes become coordinated migrations rather than versioning nightmares.

Code Sharing - Shared libraries live alongside applications. Import common code directly without publishing to npm registries.

Consistent Tooling - Configuration for TypeScript, Ultracite, and testing applies across all projects. Standards propagate automatically.

Unified Types - TypeScript definitions flow between packages. Change an interface and see impacts immediately across the entire codebase.

Turborepo's Build Intelligence

Turborepo understands task relationships and optimizes execution:

{
  "pipeline": {
    "build": {
      "dependsOn": ["^build"],
      "outputs": ["dist/**", ".next/**"]
    },
    "test": {
      "dependsOn": ["build"]
    },
    "dev": {
      "cache": false
    }
  }
}

This configuration tells Turborepo:

• Build dependencies before dependents
• Cache build outputs for reuse
• Run development servers without caching
• Execute tasks in optimal order

Remote Caching

Turborepo's remote caching shares build artifacts across machines and team members:

# Developer A builds the project
turbo build
# ✓ Builds everything, caches results

# Developer B pulls latest code
turbo build
# ✓ Downloads cached artifacts, skips rebuild

CI/CD systems benefit similarly. Unchanged packages skip rebuilding entirely. What took minutes now takes seconds.

Parallel Execution

Tasks run concurrently when possible:

turbo test
# Running 4 tasks in parallel:
# - packages/ui test
# - packages/auth test
# - packages/utils test
# - apps/web test

CPU cores stay busy. Feedback arrives faster. The development loop tightens.

Incremental Builds

Turborepo tracks file changes and rebuilds only affected packages:

# Edit packages/ui/Button.tsx
turbo build
# ✓ Rebuilds packages/ui
# ✓ Rebuilds apps using packages/ui
# ✗ Skips unaffected packages

This granular understanding prevents unnecessary work. Large codebases remain responsive.

Pipeline Configuration

Task pipelines define dependencies and caching strategies:

{
  "pipeline": {
    "build": {
      "dependsOn": ["^build"],
      "outputs": ["dist/**"]
    },
    "test": {
      "dependsOn": ["build"],
      "inputs": ["src/**", "tests/**"]
    },
    "lint": {
      "outputs": []
    }
  }
}

Each task declares:

• dependsOn - Tasks that must complete first
• outputs - Directories to cache
• inputs - Files that trigger re-execution

Workspace Integration

Turborepo works with npm, yarn, and pnpm workspaces:

{
  "workspaces": [
    "apps/*",
    "packages/*"
  ],
  "scripts": {
    "build": "turbo build",
    "dev": "turbo dev",
    "test": "turbo test"
  }
}

Existing monorepo setups adopt Turborepo without restructuring.

Development Workflow

A typical Turborepo development session:

# Clone repository
git clone repo && cd repo

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Start development
turbo dev
# ✓ Starts all dev servers in parallel
# ✓ Watches for changes
# ✓ Hot reloads on save

# Run tests
turbo test
# ✓ Runs only affected tests
# ✓ Uses cached results when possible

# Build for production
turbo build
# ✓ Builds in dependency order
# ✓ Caches results for next time

AI-Assisted Development

Turborepo's structured approach benefits AI code generation:

Clear Boundaries - Package organization guides where code belongs. AI understands the separation between apps and libraries.

Consistent Patterns - Task definitions repeat across packages. AI learns the pipeline once and applies it everywhere.

Fast Feedback - Quick builds mean AI can iterate rapidly. Generate, test, refine without waiting.

Cache Awareness - AI-generated code that doesn't affect builds uses cached results. Experimentation stays fast.

Advanced Features

Pruned Lockfiles - Deploy only necessary dependencies:

turbo prune --scope=@app/web
# Creates minimal lockfile for deployment

Dry Runs - Preview what would execute:

turbo build --dry-run
# Shows planned execution without running

Graph Visualization - Understand task relationships:

turbo build --graph
# Generates visual dependency graph

Related Documentation

Additional Resources