Pulumi + Bun: Supercharge Your Infrastructure Dependencies

Today, we are announcing a new addition that allows Pulumi users to use Bun as their package manager, offering an alternative to npm, Yarn, or pnpm. Bun, a recently released JavaScript runtime, bundler, transpiler, and package manager, provides a faster way to manage Pulumi project dependencies.

What is this Bun thing you’re talking about?

If you’ve spent time around the JavaScript ecosystem, then you’ve probably heard of Bun. If you haven’t, then be aware that it presents itself as a JavaScript toolkit, a direct drop-in replacement for NodeJS. However, the part that we like at Pulumi is its use as a package manager. According to the Bun install documentation, switching from npm install to bun install can make your installations up to 25 times faster.

Getting started with Bun and Pulumi

If you’re already using NodeJS with Pulumi, the easiest way to install Bun is to run the following:

npm install -g bun

The Bun installation documentation has more information on other methods available.

How to use in a new project

If you want to try this out on a new project, you can use

mkdir new-bun-project && cd new-bun-project
pulumi new typescript

You’ll get the usual prompts to set the project name, the description, and the stack name:

This command will walk you through creating a new Pulumi project.

Enter a value or leave blank to accept the (default), and press <ENTER>.
Press ^C at any time to quit.

Project name (new-bun-project):
Project description (A minimal TypeScript Pulumi program):
Created project 'new-bun-project'

Please enter your desired stack name.
To create a stack in an organization, use the format <org-name>/<stack-name> (e.g. `acmecorp/dev`).
Stack name (dev):

Then you’ll be shown a list of the package managers to choose from (obviously we’ll use the arrow keys to select the bun option):

The package manager to use for installing dependencies  [Use arrows to move, type to filter]
  npm
  pnpm
  yarn
> bun

Hit the ENTER key to make your selection, and you’ll see the bun install output:

The package manager to use for installing dependencies bun
Installing dependencies...

bun install v1.2.18 (0d4089ea)

+ @types/node@18.19.120 (v24.1.0 available)
+ typescript@5.8.3
+ @pulumi/pulumi@3.186.0

272 packages installed [1240.00ms]

Blocked 1 postinstall. Run `bun pm untrusted` for details.
Finished installing dependencies

Your new project is ready to go! ✨

To perform an initial deployment, run `pulumi up`

The files in the folder look a little different:

drwxr-xr-x@   - piers 28 Jul 18:13 node_modules
.rw-r--r--@  21 piers 28 Jul 18:11 .gitignore
.rw-r--r--@ 61k piers 28 Jul 18:13 bun.lock
.rw-r--r--@  42 piers 28 Jul 18:11 index.ts
.rw-r--r--@ 217 piers 28 Jul 18:11 package.json
.rw-r--r--@ 198 piers 28 Jul 18:13 Pulumi.yaml
.rw-r--r--@ 438 piers 28 Jul 18:11 tsconfig.json

(note the bun.lock instead of the package-lock.json)

and in the Pulumi.yaml file, the packagemanager option is set to bun:

name: new-bun-project
description: A minimal TypeScript Pulumi program
runtime:
  name: nodejs
  options:
    packagemanager: bun
config:
  pulumi:tags:
    value:
      pulumi:template: typescript

We will use the Random provider to generate a new password. Let’s add the @pulumi/random package:

❯ bun add @pulumi/random
bun add v1.2.18 (0d4089ea)

installed @pulumi/random@4.18.3

[345.00ms] done

Since we’re still using the Pulumi NodeJS runtime, that’s all we need Bun for right now.

The rest is business as usual, so the index.ts file looks like:

import * as random from "@pulumi/random";

const password = new random.RandomPassword("password", {
    length: 20
});

export const pw = password.result;

Then it’s just a case of running:

pulumi up

and creating the resources.

Migrating an existing project

If you already have a project set up and are using npm as your package manager, there are a few steps you’ll need to follow.

For this example, I’m going to use the code from the Bun example above but set it up using npm instead:

❯ pulumi new typescript
This command will walk you through creating a new Pulumi project.

Enter a value or leave blank to accept the (default), and press <ENTER>.
Press ^C at any time to quit.

Project name (migrate-project):
Project description (A minimal TypeScript Pulumi program):
Created project 'migrate-project'

Please enter your desired stack name.
To create a stack in an organization, use the format <org-name>/<stack-name> (e.g. `acmecorp/dev`).
Stack name (dev):

The package manager to use for installing dependencies npm
Installing dependencies...


added 293 packages, and audited 294 packages in 9s

43 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

found 0 vulnerabilities
Finished installing dependencies

Your new project is ready to go! ✨

To perform an initial deployment, run `pulumi up`

Then we’ll install the @pulumi/random package:

npm install @pulumi/random

and checking the folder listing:

drwxr-xr-x@    - piers 28 Jul 18:32 node_modules
.rw-r--r--@   21 piers 28 Jul 18:32 .gitignore
.rw-r--r--@   42 piers 28 Jul 18:32 index.ts
.rw-r--r--@ 149k piers 28 Jul 18:32 package-lock.json
.rw-r--r--@  217 piers 28 Jul 18:32 package.json
.rw-r--r--@  198 piers 28 Jul 18:32 Pulumi.yaml
.rw-r--r--@  438 piers 28 Jul 18:32 tsconfig.json

we can see that we’ve got the usual package-lock.json file that we expect, and the Pulumi.yaml file looks like this:

name: migrate-project
description: A minimal TypeScript Pulumi program
runtime:
  name: nodejs
  options:
    packagemanager: npm
config:
  pulumi:tags:
    value:
      pulumi:template: typescript

(Note the packagemanager option).

To migrate this project to use Bun as the package manager instead, we need to update the Pulumi.yaml to set the packagemanager to be bun:

name: migrate-project
description: A minimal TypeScript Pulumi program
runtime:
  name: nodejs
  options:
    packagemanager: bun
config:
  pulumi:tags:
    value:
      pulumi:template: typescript

We can use the bun CLI to migrate the package-lock.json file to the bun.lock file, running the following command:

bun pm migrate

which gives us the file structure:

drwxr-xr-x@    - piers 28 Jul 18:32 node_modules
.rw-r--r--@   21 piers 28 Jul 18:32 .gitignore
.rw-r--r--@  64k piers 28 Jul 18:43 bun.lock
.rw-r--r--@   42 piers 28 Jul 18:32 index.ts
.rw-r--r--@ 149k piers 28 Jul 18:32 package-lock.json
.rw-r--r--@  217 piers 28 Jul 18:32 package.json
.rw-r--r--@  198 piers 28 Jul 18:32 Pulumi.yaml
.rw-r--r--@  438 piers 28 Jul 18:32 tsconfig.json

We can then delete the package-lock.json if we want to.

Then we can run pulumi install to install the packages to Bun’s global cache:

❯ pulumi install
Installing dependencies...

bun install v1.2.18 (0d4089ea)

15 packages installed [60.00ms]
Finished installing dependencies

and continue with

pulumi up

What else?

We’ve baked Bun into the pulumi/pulumi container, allowing you to make use of the faster package installer in your CI/CD pipeline, including in Pulumi Deployments. If you’d like to see Bun become more integrated into Pulumi, there’s an open issue that you can vote on, or even implement if you’re interested.

Final thoughts

Bun is in the process of establishing itself as the new player in the JavaScript ecosystem. Its focus on speed makes it a great alternative to npm, Yarn, and pnpm when managing Pulumi project dependencies. Give it a try on your next project, and you may wonder how you ever lived without it.