Migrate the ascender_devel image and awx/ui build to pnpm

[clo-ciq]

Summary

Part of the org-wide npm/yarn -> pnpm migration tracked in Jira SRE-1792 (sub-task SRE-2288).

Unlike most repos in this migration, ci.yml never calls npm/pnpm directly — the ui-lint/ui-test-screens/ui-test-general jobs run make docker-runner, which mounts the repo into the ascender_devel image and runs make ui-lint etc. inside the container. So the actual fix lives in the Makefile and in tools/ansible/roles/dockerfile/templates/Dockerfile.j2 (which generates the Dockerfile used to build that image), not in the workflow YAML itself. There is no actions/setup-node/pnpm/action-setup to add, since Node is installed via a dnf module stream inside the Dockerfile, not via a GitHub Action.

• awx/ui/package.json: pin packageManager: pnpm@11.21.0 (with corepack-verified hash).
• Lockfile converted with pnpm import (not a fresh install), so resolved dependency versions are unchanged. package-lock.json removed.
• Three phantom dependencies fixed: @lingui/core, @patternfly/react-styles, and eslint-plugin-import-x were used directly in source/config but only ever present as transitive deps of @lingui/react, @patternfly/react-core, and eslint-config-airbnb-extended respectively. npm's flat/hoisted node_modules silently allowed this; pnpm's strict, symlinked layout does not, so eslint and ~140 Jest suites failed to resolve these modules until they were promoted to direct dependencies (all three resolve to the exact same versions already in the lockfile — no version drift).
• Makefile: NPM_BIN -> PNPM_BIN; every ui-* target (ui-lint, ui-test, ui-test-screens, ui-test-general, ui-devel, pot, po, etc.) now calls pnpm.
• tools/ansible/roles/dockerfile/templates/Dockerfile.j2: the dnf module enable nodejs:22 stream does not bundle corepack (verified by installing it fresh in a throwaway rockylinux/rockylinux:9 container), so corepack is now bootstrapped explicitly (npm install -g corepack@0.35.0 && corepack enable) in both the builder stage and the ascender_devel dev-image stage — the two places this template installs Node.
• awx/ui/Dockerfile: updated to use pnpm-lock.yaml + corepack for consistency, but this Dockerfile is not referenced by any workflow or docker-compose config I could find, and was already broken independent of this change (it ADDs .eslintignore/.eslintrc.json/.linguirc, which were removed in Modernize the frontend toolchain: Lingui 6, ESLint 9 and @dagrejs/dagre #391's ESLint-9/flat-config migration). Not verified with a full docker build for that reason.
• docs/development/docker.md, .github/copilot-instructions.md: updated stale npm references.
• No pnpm-workspace.yaml/allowBuilds added: pnpm blocks postinstall scripts for esbuild, core-js, core-js-pure, and unrs-resolver, but I verified none of them are actually needed (esbuild's binary and CLI both work fine as-is; lint/build/test all pass), so I didn't add the file speculatively.

Test plan

All verified locally (Node v22.23.2, matching the >=22.22.0 engines constraint and the nodejs:22 module stream CI uses):

• pnpm install --frozen-lockfile succeeds cleanly, no ignored-builds warning
• pnpm run lint (eslint) passes
• pnpm run prettier-check passes
• pnpm run pretest && pnpm run test-screens --runInBand — 376/376 suites, 1918/1918 tests
• pnpm run pretest && pnpm run test-general --runInBand — 176/176 suites, 1009/1009 tests
• pnpm run build (production webpack build) compiles successfully
• CI green on the ui-lint/ui-test-screens/ui-test-general matrix jobs in ci.yml (depends on the ascender_devel image rebuild picking up the corepack change)

Note: pnpm peers check surfaces a pre-existing unmet-peer warning (@babel/core@^8.0.1 vs. several plugins wanting ^7.0.0) — unrelated to this migration, not blocking any of the above, left as-is.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

https://claude.ai/code/session_01EazRi5J66CRzQyVBevEfrW

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Migrates Ascender’s UI build/test tooling (primarily executed inside the ascender_devel image via make targets) from npm to pnpm by bootstrapping Corepack in the image build, switching Makefile UI targets to pnpm, and aligning documentation and UI metadata.

Changes:

• Bootstrap Corepack in ascender_devel build stages so the pnpm version pinned in awx/ui/package.json can be used reliably.
• Update all ui-* Makefile targets to use pnpm (including install --frozen-lockfile) instead of npm.
• Add packageManager and promote a few previously-transitive UI dependencies to direct dependencies; update docs and Copilot instructions to reference pnpm.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 8 changed files in this pull request and generated 1 comment.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
tools/ansible/roles/dockerfile/templates/Dockerfile.j2	Installs/enables Corepack (for pnpm shims) in builder/dev stages where Node is present.
Makefile	Replaces npm usage in UI targets with pnpm and standardizes on frozen-lockfile installs.
docs/development/docker.md	Updates contributor setup instructions from npm to pnpm/Corepack, plus wording cleanups.
awx/ui/package.json	Pins pnpm via packageManager and adds required direct dependencies for pnpm’s stricter resolution.
awx/ui/Dockerfile	Switches from package-lock.json/npm to pnpm-lock.yaml + Corepack/pnpm.
.github/copilot-instructions.md	Updates repository tooling description to indicate pnpm for the UI.

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