[rush-lib] Add pnpm global catalog detection to rush change

[CarltonHowell]

Summary

• Addresses: [rush] rush change does not detect change to catalog version of dependency #5624
• rush change does not consider changes to pnpm global catalog changes. Running rush change now considers any chances to catalog entries, be it additions of version changes.

Details

• Added catalog change detection logic in getChangedProjectsAsync() between the per-project file change detection and the includeExternalDependencies block. The new logic:
  a. Guards on rushConfiguration.isPnpm and globalCatalogs existing
  b. Computes the relative path to pnpm-config.json and checks if it's in changedFiles
  c. Loads the old pnpm-config.json to find which catalog names changed
  d. If the old file doesn't exist (new creation), treats all current catalogs as changed
  e. Builds a map of catalogName → Set by scanning each project's dependencies, devDependencies, and optionalDependencies for catalog: protocol entries
  f. Marks affected projects as changed

How it was tested

• Unit tests added for catalog change logic

Impacted documentation

• Currently no documentation exists for pnpm global catalog capabilities

[CarltonHowell]

@microsoft-github-policy-service agree

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Adds PNPM global catalog (globalCatalogs) change detection to rush change so that projects using the catalog: protocol are marked as changed when catalog entries are edited, including across subspaces (addresses #5624).

Changes:

• Extend ProjectChangeAnalyzer.getChangedProjectsAsync() to detect diffs in per-subspace pnpm-config.json catalog entries and mark impacted projects as changed.
• Add unit tests covering catalog changes (default/named catalogs) and subspace scenarios.
• Add new test fixture repos (repoWithCatalogs, repoWithSubspacesCatalogs) and a Rush change file.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 29 out of 29 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/ProjectChangeAnalyzer.ts	Implements subspace-aware catalog diffing and project impact detection.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/ProjectChangeAnalyzer.test.ts	Adds unit tests for catalog change detection (including subspaces).
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithCatalogs/rush.json	Test fixture Rush repo definition for catalog tests.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithCatalogs/a/package.json	Fixture project using default catalog dependencies.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithCatalogs/b/package.json	Fixture project using tools catalog (and workspace dep).
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithCatalogs/c/package.json	Fixture project with no catalog dependencies.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithCatalogs/d/package.json	Fixture project using default catalog (single package).
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithCatalogs/e/package.json	Fixture project using tools catalog in devDependencies.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithCatalogs/common/config/rush/pnpm-config.json	Fixture defining globalCatalogs for non-subspace repo.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/rush.json	Test fixture Rush repo definition with subspaces enabled.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/a/package.json	Fixture default-subspace project using default catalog.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/b/package.json	Fixture default-subspace project with non-catalog dependency.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/c/package.json	Fixture default-subspace project consuming a workspace dep.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/d/package.json	Fixture named-subspace project using default catalog.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/e/package.json	Fixture named-subspace project using tools catalog.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/f/package.json	Fixture named-subspace project with no catalog deps.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/g/package.json	Fixture named-subspace project using default catalog.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/h/package.json	Fixture named-subspace project using tools catalog.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/subspaces/default/pnpm-config.json	Fixture default subspace globalCatalogs definition.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/subspaces/default/common-versions.json	Fixture default subspace common-versions config.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/subspaces/default/.pnpmfile.cjs	Fixture default subspace pnpmfile.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/subspaces/project-change-analyzer-test-subspace/pnpm-config.json	Fixture named subspace globalCatalogs definition.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/subspaces/project-change-analyzer-test-subspace/common-versions.json	Fixture named subspace common-versions config.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/subspaces/project-change-analyzer-test-subspace/.pnpmfile.cjs	Fixture named subspace pnpmfile.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/rush/version-policies.json	Fixture Rush config required by test repo.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/rush/subspaces.json	Fixture enabling subspaces in test repo.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/rush/pnpm-config.json	Fixture root pnpm config enabling workspaces for subspaces.
libraries/rush-lib/src/logic/test/repoWithSubspacesCatalogs/common/config/rush/experiments.json	Fixture enabling cross-subspace decoupled dependency exemption for tests.
common/changes/@microsoft/rush/rush-change-catalog-entries_2026-02-17-18-48.json	Change file documenting the Rush CLI behavior update.

[dmichon-msft]

Few readability suggestions.

[bartvandenende-wm]

Looks like this change is causing some regression @iclanton

[bartvandenende-wm]

@CarltonHowell I think this path is currently parsing pnpm-config.json with JSON.parse, which does not allow comments. In many Rush repos this file is JSONC-style (with comments), so this branch may incorrectly fall into the “created or unparseable” path and report all projects as affected.

Also, should this message use writeWarningLine instead of writeLine? Right now it goes to stdout, which can break consumers expecting pure JSON output from list --json.