Can I use root as a package location with workspaces?

[jansiegel]

I'm not sure if it's a bug or lack of feature, so I'm posting it here.

Is it safe to declare root as a package location with npm workspaces? For example:

"workspaces": {
  "packages": [
    ".",
    "packages/*"
  ]
}

I can't find anything about doing so in the RFCs or the documentation (if I missed something, point me in the right direction), so I figured it should work fine - and it does for the most part, the dependencies seem to install alright, they get linked properly, but I'm having an issue with generating package-lock.json.
Namely, When I declare "." as a package location, package-lock gets created, but it looks more like a slighly-modified package.json, than a regular lock file:

{
  "name": "workspaces-test",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "lockfileVersion": 2,
  "requires": true,
  "packages": {
    "": {
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "license": "ISC",
      "devDependencies": {
        "rimraf": "^2.5.4"
      },
      "workspaces": {
        "packages": [
          ".",
          "packages/*"
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Is this a bug, or should I use the root exclusively as a top-level config location?

[arcanis]

In Yarn the manifest that defines a workspaces field is necessarily a workspace itself, so I'd expect you not to have to explicitly define . in your array

[ljharb]

In lerna, you definitely do have to define . - i use that in one lerna project, and do not use it in another; it seems important that both be possible.

[MylesBorins]

@jansiegel would you be able to open this question as an issue on https://github.com/npm/cli

[jansiegel]

Sure, will do