filter-npm-deps

filter-npm-deps is a convenient Node.js CLI script designed to filter a given list of dependencies from your package.json.

It supports filtering dependencies from the commonly used dependency fields:

• dependencies
• devDependencies
• optionalDependencies
• peerDependencies
• bundleDependencies

🎯 Motivation

In many projects, the package.json file contains numerous dependencies serving different purposes. However, certain scenarios, like CI jobs, demand only specific dependencies in particular versions. Therefore filter-npm-deps can reduce or prune your package.json, to only contain the dependencies that you need.

🚀 Usage

To use filter-npm-deps, you can easily invoke it with npx as follows:

npx filter-npm-deps -d [dependencies]

🧰 Requirements

• node.js 18 or higher

📝Example

Given the following package.json:

{
  "name": "my-app",
  "description": "...",
  "dependencies": {
    "axios": "1.4.0",
    "lodash-es": "4.17.21"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "typescript": "5.1.6"
  },
  "optionalDependencies": {
    "playwright": "1.36.1"
  }
}

If you want to only keep playwright and lodash-es with the given version from your package.json, you can run:

npx filter-npm-deps -d "playwright,lodash-es"

which would result in:

{
  "name": "my-app",
  "description": "...",
  "dependencies": {
    "lodash-es": "4.17.21"
  },
  "devDependencies": {},
  "optionalDependencies": {
    "playwright": "1.36.1"
  }
}

Afterward you can install your dependencies with your package manager of choice.

For example with npm: npm ci

💡 Alternatives

While filter-npm-deps serves as a simple solution for filtering dependencies, there are other tools available that you might find useful:

• jq is a powerful command-line tool for processing JSON data. It can be used to filter for nested properties, but it requires explicit handling of all three dependency fields.
• install-subset offers a different approach by enabling you to define specific subsets of npm dependencies that should be installed.