find-up

What is find-up?

The find-up npm package is a utility that allows you to find and read files or directories by traversing up the file system. It's useful for finding configuration files and other resources that may be located in a parent directory relative to the current working directory.

What are find-up's main functionalities?

Find a file by name

This feature allows you to find a file by its name, starting from the current directory and searching upwards through the parent directories.

const findUp = require('find-up');

(async () => {
  const filePath = await findUp('unicorn.png');
  console.log(filePath);
  //=> '/Users/sindresorhus/unicorn.png'
})();

Find a file using a matcher function

This feature allows you to use a custom matcher function to find a file. The function receives the current directory and returns the path to stop at or `undefined` to continue searching.

const findUp = require('find-up');

(async () => {
  const filePath = await findUp(directory => directory === '/Users/sindresorhus' ? 'unicorn.png' : undefined);
  console.log(filePath);
  //=> '/Users/sindresorhus/unicorn.png'
})();

Find a file with a specific name in an array of names

This feature allows you to pass an array of file names to `findUp`, and it will return the first file found with one of those names.

const findUp = require('find-up');

(async () => {
  const filePath = await findUp(['rainbow.png', 'unicorn.png']);
  console.log(filePath);
  //=> '/Users/sindresorhus/unicorn.png'
})();

Other packages similar to find-up

locate-path

The locate-path package is similar to find-up as it also searches for files or directories by traversing up the directory tree. However, locate-path does not provide the convenience methods for matching files that find-up does.

pkg-up

The pkg-up package is designed specifically to find the closest package.json file in the directory tree. It is a more specialized tool compared to find-up, which can search for any file or directory.

findup-sync

findup-sync is similar to find-up but uses glob patterns for searching and is based on the micromatch library. It provides a synchronous API, unlike find-up which is promise-based and supports async/await.

README

find-up

Find a file or directory by walking up parent directories

Install

npm install find-up

Usage

/
└── Users
    └── sindresorhus
        ├── unicorn.png
        └── foo
            └── bar
                ├── baz
                └── example.js

example.js

import path from 'node:path';
import {findUp, pathExists} from 'find-up';

console.log(await findUp('unicorn.png'));
//=> '/Users/sindresorhus/unicorn.png'

console.log(await findUp(['rainbow.png', 'unicorn.png']));
//=> '/Users/sindresorhus/unicorn.png'

console.log(await findUp(async directory => {
	const hasUnicorns = await pathExists(path.join(directory, 'unicorn.png'));
	return hasUnicorns && directory;
}, {type: 'directory'}));
//=> '/Users/sindresorhus'

API

findUp(name, options?)

findUp(matcher, options?)

Returns a Promise for either the path or undefined if it could not be found.

findUp([...name], options?)

Returns a Promise for either the first path found (by respecting the order of the array) or undefined if none could be found.

findUpMultiple(name, options?)

findUpMultiple(matcher, options?)

Returns a Promise for either an array of paths or an empty array if none could be found.

findUpMultiple([...name], options?)

Returns a Promise for either an array of the first paths found (by respecting the order of the array) or an empty array if none could be found.

findUpSync(name, options?)

findUpSync(matcher, options?)

Returns a path or undefined if it could not be found.

findUpSync([...name], options?)

Returns the first path found (by respecting the order of the array) or undefined if none could be found.

findUpMultipleSync(name, options?)

findUpMultipleSync(matcher, options?)

Returns an array of paths or an empty array if none could be found.

findUpMultipleSync([...name], options?)

Returns an array of the first paths found (by respecting the order of the array) or an empty array if none could be found.

name

Type: string

The name of the file or directory to find.

matcher

Type: Function

A function that will be called with each directory until it returns a string with the path, which stops the search, or the root directory has been reached and nothing was found. Useful if you want to match files with certain patterns, set of permissions, or other advanced use-cases.

When using async mode, the matcher may optionally be an async or promise-returning function that returns the path.

options

Type: object

cwd

Type: URL | string
Default: process.cwd()

The directory to start from.

type

Type: string
Default: 'file'
Values: 'file' | 'directory'

The type of path to match.

allowSymlinks

Type: boolean
Default: true

Allow symbolic links to match if they point to the chosen path type.

stopAt

Type: URL | string
Default: Root directory

A directory path where the search halts if no matches are found before reaching this point.

pathExists(path)

Returns a Promise<boolean> of whether the path exists.

pathExistsSync(path)

Returns a boolean of whether the path exists.

path

Type: string

The path to a file or directory.

findUpStop

A Symbol that can be returned by a matcher function to stop the search and cause findUp to immediately return undefined. Useful as a performance optimization in case the current working directory is deeply nested in the filesystem.

import path from 'node:path';
import {findUp, findUpStop} from 'find-up';

await findUp(directory => {
	return path.basename(directory) === 'work' ? findUpStop : 'logo.png';
});

Related

• find-up-cli - CLI for this module
• package-up - Find the closest package.json file
• pkg-dir - Find the root directory of an npm package
• resolve-from - Resolve the path of a module like require.resolve() but from a given path