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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Turborepo Has a Free Monorepo Tool: Build Only What Changed, Cache Everything, Speed Up CI by 10x

#monorepo #javascript #tooling #devops

Your monorepo CI takes 20 minutes. Every PR rebuilds every package — even packages you didn't touch. You tried Lerna, it's slow. You tried Nx, it's complex. You just want fast builds.

What if your build system knew exactly which packages changed and only rebuilt those — with remote caching for free?

That's Turborepo.

Quick Start 

npx create-turbo@latest
cd my-turborepo && npm run build
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How Turborepo Works 

// turbo.json
{
  "$schema": "https://turbo.build/schema.json",
  "tasks": {
    "build": {
      "dependsOn": ["^build"],
      "outputs": ["dist/**", ".next/**"]
    },
    "test": {
      "dependsOn": ["build"]
    },
    "lint": {},
    "dev": {
      "cache": false,
      "persistent": true
    }
  }
}
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When you run turbo build:

  1. Turborepo analyzes your dependency graph
  2. Builds packages in parallel (respecting dependencies)
  3. Caches outputs — next build of unchanged packages takes 0 seconds
  4. Only rebuilds what actually changed

The Impact 

# First build — full run
$ turbo build
# ✓ @repo/ui: build (2.1s)
# ✓ @repo/utils: build (1.3s)
# ✓ web: build (8.7s)
# ✓ docs: build (5.2s)
# Total: 12.1s (parallelized)

# Second build — nothing changed
$ turbo build
# ✓ @repo/ui: build (FULL TURBO - 12ms)
# ✓ @repo/utils: build (FULL TURBO - 8ms)
# ✓ web: build (FULL TURBO - 15ms)
# ✓ docs: build (FULL TURBO - 11ms)
# Total: 46ms
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From 12 seconds to 46 milliseconds. That's what caching gives you.

Remote Caching — Share Cache Across CI and Team 

npx turbo login
npx turbo link
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Now your CI and every developer share the same cache. Developer A builds @repo/ui → Developer B gets the cached result instantly. CI doesn't rebuild what a developer already built locally.

Monorepo Structure 

my-turborepo/
  apps/
    web/           ← Next.js app
    docs/          ← Documentation site
    mobile/        ← React Native app
  packages/
    ui/            ← Shared component library
    utils/         ← Shared utilities
    config/        ← Shared ESLint, TypeScript configs
    database/      ← Prisma schema + client
  turbo.json
  package.json
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Filtering — Run Tasks for Specific Packages 

# Build only the web app and its dependencies
turbo build --filter=web

# Run tests only for packages that changed since main
turbo test --filter=...[main]

# Lint only packages in the packages/ directory
turbo lint --filter=./packages/*
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CI Integration 

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      - run: npm install
      - run: npx turbo build test lint --filter=...[HEAD^1]
        env:
          TURBO_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.TURBO_TOKEN }}
          TURBO_TEAM: ${{ secrets.TURBO_TEAM }}
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Only builds/tests packages affected by the latest commit. With remote cache, most tasks complete in milliseconds.

When to Choose Turborepo

Choose Turborepo when:

  • Your monorepo builds are slow and you want quick wins
  • You want simple setup (turbo.json + done)
  • Remote caching is valuable (teams, CI)
  • You use npm/pnpm/yarn workspaces

Skip Turborepo when:

  • Single-package repo (no benefit)
  • You need advanced code generation or graph visualization (Nx does more)
  • You need non-JS package management (Bazel handles polyglot repos)

The Bottom Line

Turborepo does one thing — make monorepo builds fast — and does it with minimal configuration. Add turbo.json, run turbo build, watch your CI time drop by 80%.

Start here: turbo.build

Need custom data extraction, scraping, or automation? I build tools that collect and process data at scale — 78 actors on Apify Store and 265+ open-source repos. Email me: Spinov001@gmail.com | My Apify Actors

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