depcheck

What is depcheck?

depcheck is a tool that helps you to find unused dependencies in your project. It scans your project files and identifies which dependencies are not being used, which can help you to clean up your package.json file and reduce the size of your project.

What are depcheck's main functionalities?

Check for unused dependencies

This feature allows you to check for unused dependencies in your project. You can specify options to ignore certain directories or dependencies that match specific patterns.

const depcheck = require('depcheck');

const options = {
  ignoreDirs: [
    'sandbox',
    'dist',
    'bower_components'
  ],
  ignoreMatches: [
    'grunt-*'
  ]
};

depcheck('/path/to/your/project', options, (unused) => {
  console.log(unused.dependencies); // an array containing the unused dependencies
  console.log(unused.devDependencies); // an array containing the unused devDependencies
});

Check for missing dependencies

This feature allows you to check for dependencies that are used in your project but are not listed in your package.json file.

const depcheck = require('depcheck');

depcheck('/path/to/your/project', {}, (unused) => {
  console.log(unused.missing); // a lookup containing the dependencies missing in package.json but used in the code
});

Check for invalid files

This feature allows you to identify files in your project that could not be parsed, which might indicate issues with those files.

const depcheck = require('depcheck');

depcheck('/path/to/your/project', {}, (unused) => {
  console.log(unused.invalidFiles); // a lookup containing the files that could not be parsed
});

Other packages similar to depcheck

npm-check

npm-check is a similar tool that checks for outdated, incorrect, and unused dependencies. It provides a more interactive experience compared to depcheck, allowing you to update and uninstall packages directly from the command line.

dependency-check

dependency-check is another tool that checks for missing or unused dependencies. It is more focused on ensuring that all dependencies are correctly listed in your package.json file, rather than identifying unused dependencies.

madge

madge is a tool that provides a visual representation of your project's dependency graph. While it does not specifically focus on unused dependencies, it can help you understand the structure of your project and identify potential issues.

README

depcheck

Keeping track of your dependencies is not an easy task, especially if you have a big application. Are you sure you are using all of the dependencies you define in your package.json file? One way to find out is to look at all your files and check which modules you are using, but that's too time consuming. Or maybe you can do a grep on all the files of your project, and then some grep -v to remove the junk. But that's a hassle too.

And that is why depcheck exists.

It's a nifty little tool that looks at your package.json file and scans your code in order to find any unused dependencies.

Works with grunt dependencies too!

Installation

npm install depcheck -g

Usage

As easy as depcheck [DIRECTORY].

Where DIRECTORY is the root directory of your application (where the package.json is). This will list all the unused dependencies in your code if any.

Options

--no-dev : by default depcheck looks at dependencies and devDependencies, this flag will tell it not to look at "devDependencies".

Or, as a lib:

var path = require("path");
var depcheck = require("depcheck");
var options = {
  "withoutDev": false, // Check against devDependencies too
  "ignoreDirs": [      // Pathnames to ignore
    "sandbox",
    "dist",
    "bower_components"
  ],
  "ignoreMatches": [  // Ignore dependencies that match these minimatch patterns
    "grunt-*"
  ]
};
var root = path.resolve("some path");

depcheck(root, options, function(unused) {
  console.log(unused.dependencies);
  console.log(unused.devDependencies);
});

TODOs

Well, it's more of a "What do you think guys?".

There are a couple of things I would like to do if anyone is interested:

• There could be false positives, we could have a white list of modules that you know you are using and that depcheck can't find in your code
• A grunt-contrib-depcheck would be nice

License

MIT

Changelog

0.4.0 (2014-06-14)

Full Changelog

Closed issues:

• option to ignore directories #6

Merged pull requests:

• Ignore paths #8 (dylang)