I’ve been stuck for over 24 hours trying to fix a build error on my Vercel-hosted project, and nothing works.
The site was working perfectly on an older version, but even if I make very small changes (like editing the footer text or a button), the deploy fails with the same error.
The issue started because Vercel is automatically updating some dependencies, especially:
• It upgrades @ai-sdk/openai to 2.x and ai to 5.x.
• These versions use zod@3, but during the build, a zod@4 version is also installed, which doesn’t export ./v4 as expected.
• This results in multiple Module not found: Package path ./v4 is not exported from package zod errors during the build.
What I’ve tried so far (unsuccessful):
• Pinning exact versions in package.json (Vercel still upgrades them automatically).
• git pull and merge conflict resolution.
• Clearing and reinstalling dependencies locally (rm -rf node_modules && pnpm install).
• Forcing an older pnpm version with corepack.
• Manually adjusting files to compatible versions.
Nothing fixes it.
Vercel keeps upgrading the packages, and the error keeps coming back — even for the smallest front-end changes.
Question:
How can I force Vercel to use exactly the dependency versions I have locally, so the build works as before without automatic upgrades breaking compatibility?