turborepo

Getting Started

1. Install the skill using the command above
2. Open your AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, or Cursor)
3. Reference the skill in your prompt
4. The AI will use the skill's capabilities automatically

Example Prompts

• "Review the open pull requests and summarize what needs attention"
• "Generate a changelog from the last 20 commits on the main branch"

Overview

Turborepo is a high-performance build system for JavaScript/TypeScript monorepos that intelligently caches task outputs, parallelizes execution across CPU cores, and ensures teams only rebuild what has changed. It integrates with npm, yarn, and pnpm workspaces.

Instructions

• When setting up a monorepo, define tasks in turbo.json with dependsOn for ordering, use ^ prefix for topological dependencies (e.g., "dependsOn": ["^build"]), and specify outputs for cacheable artifacts.
• When configuring caching, define outputs arrays for each task (["dist/**", ".next/**"]), list all build-affecting environment variables in env or globalEnv, and set up Remote Cache for cross-developer sharing.
• When filtering workspaces, use --filter=@app/web to target specific packages, --filter=...[HEAD~1] for changed packages, and turbo run build --graph to visualize the dependency graph.
• When optimizing Docker builds, use turbo prune --scope=@app/web to generate a minimal Docker context containing only the targeted package and its dependencies.
• When setting up CI/CD, enable Remote Cache for cross-PR cache sharing, use --dry-run=json for pipeline analysis, and leverage incremental builds that only rebuild packages affected by PR changes.
• When organizing shared packages, create focused internal packages (@repo/ui, @repo/db, @repo/auth) with shared tsconfig and ESLint configs.

Examples

Example 1: Set up a new Turborepo monorepo

User request: "Initialize a monorepo with a Next.js app and shared UI library"

Actions:

1. Set up pnpm workspace with apps/web and packages/ui directories
2. Configure turbo.json with build, dev, lint, and typecheck tasks
3. Define task dependencies and cache outputs for each task
4. Create shared tsconfig base in packages/tsconfig

Output: A monorepo with parallel builds, intelligent caching, and shared configuration.

Example 2: Optimize Docker builds for deployment

User request: "Create a Dockerfile for deploying one service from our Turborepo monorepo"

Actions:

1. Run turbo prune --scope=@app/api to generate minimal context
2. Create multi-stage Dockerfile using the pruned output
3. Install dependencies and build only the targeted package
4. Configure cache mounts for faster rebuilds

Output: A lean Docker image containing only the service and its dependencies, not the full monorepo.

Guidelines

• Always define outputs for cacheable tasks; use empty outputs: [] for side-effect-only tasks like lint.
• List all environment variables in env or globalEnv that affect build output.
• Use ^ prefix in dependsOn for tasks that consume dependency outputs (build, typecheck).
• Keep internal packages small and focused: @repo/ui, @repo/db, @repo/auth.
• Use turbo prune for Docker builds; never copy the entire monorepo into a container.
• Set up Remote Cache in CI for cross-developer and cross-PR cache sharing.