Turborepo Has a Free API: Blazing Fast Monorepo Build System

#monorepo #javascript #devops #performance

Why Turborepo

Turborepo by Vercel makes monorepo builds fast. It caches task outputs, runs tasks in parallel, and only rebuilds what changed. Used by Vercel, Netflix, and Shopify.

Setup

npx create-turbo@latest my-monorepo
cd my-monorepo

turbo.json

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

Run Tasks

# Build all packages
turbo build

# Test only changed packages
turbo test --filter=...[HEAD~1]

# Run specific package
turbo build --filter=@myorg/web

# Dev mode
turbo dev

Remote Caching

# Login to Vercel (free tier)
npx turbo login
npx turbo link

# Now builds are cached remotely
turbo build  # Cache miss: 45s
turbo build  # Cache hit: 0.5s (even on CI!)

Monorepo Structure

my-monorepo/
  apps/
    web/          # Next.js app
    api/          # Express API
    mobile/       # React Native
  packages/
    ui/           # Shared components
    config/       # Shared configs
    utils/        # Shared utilities
  turbo.json
  package.json

Key Features

Incremental builds — only rebuild what changed
Remote caching — share cache across team and CI
Parallel execution — tasks run concurrently when possible
Task pipelines — define dependencies between tasks
Pruned subsets — deploy only the packages you need
Zero config — works with npm, yarn, pnpm

Resources

Need to extract monorepo data, build metrics, or dependency graphs? Check out my Apify tools or email spinov001@gmail.com for custom solutions.

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