Bun 1.3.0 `bun install --linker=isolated` does not properly link transitive dependencies.

[HunInProgress]

What version of Bun is running?

1.3.0+b0a6feca5

What platform is your computer?

Darwin 24.6.0 arm64 arm, Linux 6.8.0-85-generic x86_64 x86_64

What steps can reproduce the bug?

Run bun install --linker=isolated with the following package.json:

{
  "name": "my-project",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "type": "module",
  "devDependencies": {
    "@types/react": "^19",
    "@types/react-dom": "^19",
    "@types/bun": "latest"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "@tiptap/react": "^3.6.6",
    "@tiptap/starter-kit": "^3.6.6",
    "react": "^19",
    "react-dom": "^19"
  }
}

What is the expected behavior?

Symlinks of transitive dependencies should be in node_modules

What do you see instead?

If you check node_modules, you can see that all transitive dependencies are installed in node_modules/.bun, but there is no symlink to them in node_modules

Additional information

You can get everything to work by running bun install --linker=hoisted instead. But that kinda defeats the purpose of this feature. If this behavior is intentional, I'd love to know a proper solution/workaround.

[linear]

ENG-20891

[dylan-conway]

This is by design when using --linker isolated. The isolated linker only links transitive dependencies to node_modules/.bun/pkg@version/node_modules (https://bun.com/docs/install/isolated#how-isolated-installs-work). Doing this ensures your packages do not have access to dependencies they do not depend on explicitly.

I think the option you're looking for is publicHoistPattern which we will add support for in #23567. publicHoistPattern provides a way to hoist transitive dependencies to the root node_modules.