René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"pnpm install + pnpm dev fails out of the box on Linux (esbuild + lightningcss)","articleBody":"### Which project does this relate to?\n\nCreate Tanstack App\n\n### Describe the bug\n\nA freshly scaffolded TanStack Start project fails immediately with two consecutive \nerrors when using pnpm on Linux. No modifications were made to the project.\n\n### Your Example Website or App\n\nFresh scaffold via: pnpm create @tanstack/start@latest No modifications made. Reproducible on any Linux x64 machine with pnpm.\n\n### Steps to Reproduce the Bug or Issue\n\n1. pnpm create @tanstack/start@latest\n2. cd \u003cproject-name>\n3. pnpm install\n4. pnpm dev\n\n### Expected behavior\n\nThe dev server starts successfully after a fresh install.\n\n### Screenshots or Videos\n\n_No response_\n\n### Platform\n\n- OS: Linux x64 (Ubuntu)\n- Node: v22.22.0\n- pnpm: v10.30.1\n- @tanstack/react-start: 1.162.4\n\n### Additional context\n\nTwo errors occur in sequence:\n\nError 1 — esbuild postinstall fails:\nThe scaffold pins esbuild@0.27.3 directly in dependencies. This version has a \nbroken postinstall script that fails with:\n  Error: Expected \"0.27.3\" but got \"\"\n\nError 2 — lightningcss native binary missing (after removing esbuild from \ndependencies):\npnpm's strict symlinking means lightningcss-linux-x64-gnu binary never gets \nlinked into lightningcss's node/ directory:\n  Error: Cannot find module '../lightningcss.linux-x64-gnu.node'\n\nWorkaround: using npm install instead of pnpm works without issues.","author":{"url":"https://github.com/Emmanuel-Xs","@type":"Person","name":"Emmanuel-Xs"},"datePublished":"2026-02-23T16:33:12Z","url":"https://github.com/TanStack/cli/issues/394"}