Option to update and/or remove Corepack inside Node.js installation

[o-l-a-v]

Node.js versions comes bundled with a given Corepack version.

Maybe users wants to use the latest version of Corepack. Or maybe the Corepack version bundled with the latest version of supported Node.js version breaks:

• 2025-01-27 "Newly published versions of package managers distributed from npm cannot be installed due to key id mismatch"
  Newly published versions of package managers distributed from npm cannot be installed due to key id mismatch nodejs/corepack#612
• 2025-01-29 "Saveguards for keyid mismatch"
  Saveguards for keyid mismatch nodejs/corepack#616

It'd be great if fnm had the ability to and/or:

• Update the Corepack version inside each Node.js installation
  • On existing local installation and on fnm install?
• Remove Corepack inside Node.js installation so users can use a globally installed version instead.
  • Both on existing local installation and on fnm install with a new option --remove-corepack?

Corepack will be removed from Node.js in the future, so the remove option for older versions of Node.js managed with fnm would be great.

• deps: remove corepack nodejs/node#51981

[troyere]

Remove Corepack inside Node.js installation so users can use a globally installed version instead

It's rather counterproductive, Node was made to contain corepack at its core.

It would be wiser to add options in Node to allow finer management of Corepack, which today seems to be an obvious need.

[o-l-a-v]

fnm places its multishell path on top in PATH on changing directory, fnm use etc., and with it, the bundled Corepack version gets to the top of the list.

It's probably safe to assume that Node.js won't make huge efforts in improving how Corepack is handled when embedded with Node.js, because they've decided to remove it.

Thus, I think the ability to optionally remove the bundled Corepack in a fnm managed Node.js install makes sense. It would make it easier to manage what Corepack version is used.