Lerna is not rendering inquirer prompt properly

If you are using Lerna, a popular tool for managing JavaScript projects with multiple packages, you may encounter issues with the rendering of inquirer prompts. Inquirer is a powerful library for creating interactive command-line interfaces, but sometimes it doesn’t work as expected with Lerna. In this blog post, we will explore the possible solutions to this problem.

Solution 1: Update Lerna and Inquirer

The first step in resolving any compatibility issues is to ensure that you are using the latest versions of both Lerna and Inquirer. Run the following commands in your terminal:

npm install --global lerna
npm install --save-dev inquirer

If you already have these packages installed, you can update them using the following commands:

npm update --global lerna
npm update --save-dev inquirer

After updating, try running your Lerna commands again and check if the inquirer prompts are rendering properly.

Solution 2: Use a Custom Prompt Renderer

If updating Lerna and Inquirer doesn’t solve the issue, you can try using a custom prompt renderer. Inquirer allows you to define a custom renderer to control the appearance of the prompts. Here’s an example of how you can use a custom renderer with Lerna:

const inquirer = require('inquirer');
const { Prompt } = require('inquirer/lib/prompts');

class CustomPrompt extends Prompt {
  render() {
    // Custom rendering logic here
  }
}

inquirer.registerPrompt('custom', CustomPrompt);

inquirer.prompt([
  {
    type: 'custom',
    name: 'customPrompt',
    message: 'Enter your custom prompt:'
  }
]).then(answers => {
  console.log('Answer:', answers.customPrompt);
});

In the above code snippet, we define a custom prompt renderer by extending the base Prompt class provided by Inquirer. Inside the render method, you can implement your own rendering logic to ensure the prompt is displayed correctly.

By registering the custom prompt with the name ‘custom’, we can use it in our inquirer prompts. Replace the type of your problematic prompt with the custom prompt type and test if the rendering issue is resolved.

Solution 3: Use a Different Prompt Library

If the above solutions don’t work for you, it might be worth considering using a different prompt library instead of Inquirer. There are several alternatives available, such as Enquirer and Prompts, which provide similar functionality but with different implementation approaches.

Here’s an example of how you can use Enquirer as an alternative to Inquirer:

const { prompt } = require('enquirer');

prompt([
  {
    type: 'input',
    name: 'inputPrompt',
    message: 'Enter your input prompt:'
  }
]).then(answers => {
  console.log('Answer:', answers.inputPrompt);
});

By replacing Inquirer with a different prompt library, you might be able to bypass the rendering issue altogether.

Conclusion:

If Lerna is not rendering inquirer prompts properly, you can try updating Lerna and Inquirer to the latest versions. If that doesn’t solve the issue, consider using a custom prompt renderer or switching to a different prompt library. Hopefully, one of these solutions will help you overcome the problem and continue using Lerna smoothly.

Lerna is not rendering inquirer prompt properly