Sometimes a dependency brings in a package that is compatible enough to replace, but is larger or less maintained than an alternative. With pnpm, you can replace that transitive dependency without forking or patching its consumer.

For example, mdx-bundler depends on gray-matter, but gray-matter has been unmaintained for years and uses an old version of js-yaml. If @11ty/gray-matter has the exact same API surface, tell pnpm to resolve that dependency edge to the replacement package instead.

Add this to the root pnpm-workspace.yaml:

overrides:
  'mdx-bundler>gray-matter': 'npm:@11ty/[email protected]'

The npm: protocol creates an alias: code inside mdx-bundler still imports gray-matter, while pnpm installs @11ty/gray-matter at that location. The mdx-bundler> prefix keeps the change scoped to that package, so other users of gray-matter in the dependency graph are unaffected.

Run pnpm install afterwards to update the lockfile. This is a dependency resolution change, not a source patch, so it is easy to review and remove.

An override is still an integration decision: verify the replacement's module format, types, and the API paths your dependency actually uses. The e18e gray-matter replacement page is a useful starting point for evaluating that swap.