create-react-app is ignoring yarn's registry config value - create-react-app

Question

I am not sure if this is a problem with create-react-app or yarn.
I am trying to use create-react-app. It seems to use yarn under the hood to fetch dependencies, but yarn is ignoring its own registry config setting and tries to download packages directly from https://registry.yarnpkg.com/.
This is the output when I try to use create-react-app. You can see at the end that yarn ignores the registry config setting:
$ npx create-react-app#2.1.2 my-app --verbose --registry "http://myownregistry:1234/"
npm info it worked if it ends with ok
npm info using npm#6.4.1
npm info using node#v10.13.0
npm timing npm Completed in 153ms
npm info ok
npx: installed 63 in 72.714s
Creating a new React app in C:\work\my-app.
Installing packages. This might take a couple of minutes.
Installing react, react-dom, and react-scripts...
yarn add v1.13.0
verbose 0.399 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\my-app\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.4 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.4 Found configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.401 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\etc\\npmrc".
verbose 0.401 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\my-app\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.402 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.406 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\my-app\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.406 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.406 Found configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.407 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\etc\\yarnrc".
verbose 0.407 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\my-app\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.407 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.417 current time: 2019-01-21T16:43:06.912Z
[1/4] Resolving packages...
verbose 0.637 Performing "GET" request to "http://myownregistry:1234/react".
verbose 2.827 Request "http://myownregistry:1234/react" finished with status code 200.
verbose 2.837 Performing "GET" request to "http://myownregistry:1234/loose-envify".
verbose 2.839 Performing "GET" request to "http://myownregistry:1234/scheduler".
[... lots of similar lines removed lines removed ...]
verbose 23.218 Request "http://myownregistry:1234/string_decoder" finished with status code 200.
[2/4] Fetching packages...
verbose 23.473 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/object-assign/-/object-assign-4.1.1.tgz".
verbose 23.483 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/prop-types/-/prop-types-15.6.2.tgz".
verbose 23.486 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/loose-envify/-/loose-envify-1.4.0.tgz".
verbose 23.492 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/js-tokens/-/js-tokens-4.0.0.tgz".
verbose 23.514 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/babel-core/-/babel-core-7.0.0-bridge.0.tgz".
verbose 23.518 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/#babel/core/-/core-7.1.6.tgz".
verbose 23.52 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/#svgr/webpack/-/webpack-2.4.1.tgz".
verbose 23.531 Performing "GET" request to "https://registry.yarnpkg.com/babel-eslint/-/babel-eslint-9.0.0.tgz".
Missing dependencies in package.json
However, if I use Yarn on its own, it will use the registry config value.
$ yarn add object-assign#4.1.1 --verbose
yarn add v1.13.0
verbose 0.375 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.376 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.376 Found configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.378 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\etc\\npmrc".
verbose 0.379 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\.npmrc".
verbose 0.383 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.383 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.383 Found configuration file "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.384 Checking for configuration file "C:\\Program Files\\nodejs\\etc\\yarnrc".
verbose 0.384 Checking for configuration file "C:\\work\\.yarnrc".
verbose 0.39 current time: 2019-01-21T16:48:15.659Z
info No lockfile found.
[1/4] Resolving packages...
verbose 0.488 Performing "GET" request to "http://myownregistry:1234/object-assign".
verbose 3.892 Request "http://myownregistry:1234/object-assign" finished with status code 200.
[2/4] Fetching packages...
verbose 3.932 Performing "GET" request to "http://myownregistry:1234/object-assign/-/object-assign-4.1.1.tgz".
[3/4] Linking dependencies...
verbose 4.143 Creating directory "C:\\work\\node_modules\\object-assign".
verbose 4.146 Copying "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\AppData\\Local\\Yarn\\Cache\\v4\\npm-object-assign-4.1.1-2109adc7965887cfc05cbbd442cac8bfbb360863\\node_modules\\object-assign\\index.js" to "C:\\work\\node_modules\\object-assign\\index.js".
verbose 4.147 Copying "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\AppData\\Local\\Yarn\\Cache\\v4\\npm-object-assign-4.1.1-2109adc7965887cfc05cbbd442cac8bfbb360863\\node_modules\\object-assign\\license" to "C:\\work\\node_modules\\object-assign\\license".
verbose 4.147 Copying "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\AppData\\Local\\Yarn\\Cache\\v4\\npm-object-assign-4.1.1-2109adc7965887cfc05cbbd442cac8bfbb360863\\node_modules\\object-assign\\package.json" to "C:\\work\\node_modules\\object-assign\\package.json".
verbose 4.147 Copying "C:\\Users\\jbloggs\\AppData\\Local\\Yarn\\Cache\\v4\\npm-object-assign-4.1.1-2109adc7965887cfc05cbbd442cac8bfbb360863\\node_modules\\object-assign\\readme.md" to "C:\\work\\node_modules\\object-assign\\readme.md".
[4/4] Building fresh packages...
success Saved lockfile.
success Saved 1 new dependency.
info Direct dependencies
+- object-assign#4.1.1
info All dependencies
+- object-assign#4.1.1
Done in 3.86s.
What can I do to get create-react-app to invoke yarn in a way that yarn uses the registry config value?

Answer 1

I got same issue today and found the root cause, there is a piece of code checking for custom registry in yarn config. If not found then cached yarn.lock file (with links to default registry inside) is copied to target folder before install:
if (yarnUsesDefaultRegistry) {
fs.copySync(
require.resolve('./yarn.lock.cached'),
path.join(root, 'yarn.lock')
);
}
When you run the same install command from command line, then no conflict with generated lock file and all installs smoothly using your .npmrc. It was quite tricky to catch this as create-react-app clears lock file on failed install :).
I would consider this as create-react-app issue. Simple workaround is to set custom registry to yarn explicitly:
yarn config set registry http://myownregistry:1234 --global
Next create-react-app run will pick up this property and skip copying of cached lock file.

Answer 2

As far as I see, initial yarn installation of create-react-app doesn't accept/honor custom registry settings(Source code). But it does honor --verbose option(Source code).
You can create issue in official repo for custom registry support. There are some issues around this already(like this one). but, looks like this is a good to have feature.