pnpm approve-builds only lists packages whose builds were skipped without a decision. Once a package is in ignoredBuiltDependencies, that counts as a decision, so approve-builds reports "There are no packages awaiting approval" — and just deleting them from the list doesn't help either, because pnpm install sees everything is already installed and doesn't re-run anything.

What worked for me (pnpm 10.18):

1. In pnpm-workspace.yaml, move them from ignoredBuiltDependencies to onlyBuiltDependencies:

onlyBuiltDependencies:
  - '@parcel/watcher'
  - esbuild
  - sharp

2. Run their build scripts now:

pnpm rebuild @parcel/watcher esbuild sharp

You should see each package's postinstall run (e.g. esbuild postinstall: Done). After that, future installs will run them automatically.