@libria/ts-barrels

A simple, fast TypeScript barrel file generator that recursively creates index.ts exports for your project.

What are Barrel Files?

Barrel files (typically index.ts) re-export modules from a directory, enabling cleaner imports:

// Without barrels
import { UserService } from './services/user/UserService';
import { AuthService } from './services/auth/AuthService';

// With barrels
import { UserService, AuthService } from './services';

Installation

npm install @libria/ts-barrels

CLI Usage

npx ts-barrels <root> [options]

Options

| Option | Description | Default | |--------|-------------|---------| | <root> | Root folder to generate barrels in | (required) | | --all | Generate barrels recursively from leaves to root | false | | --force | Overwrite existing barrel files | false | | --name <filename> | Custom barrel filename | index.ts |

Examples

Generate barrels for the entire src directory:

npx ts-barrels src --all

Generate with a custom filename:

npx ts-barrels src --all --name barrel.ts

Force regenerate all barrels:

npx ts-barrels src --all --force

Ignore a folder from barrel generation:

npx ts-barrels ignore src/internal

Programmatic Usage

import { generateBarrels } from '@libria/ts-barrels';

await generateBarrels('./src', {
  all: true,
  force: false,
  filename: 'index.ts'
});

Skip Comment

To prevent a barrel file from being overwritten, add a skip comment at the top:

// @libria/ts-barrels skip
export * from './custom-export';
export { specific } from './module';

Files with the skip comment are always preserved, even when using --force.

Ignoring Folders

To completely exclude a folder (and all its children) from barrel generation, create a .lbbign marker file in that folder:

npx ts-barrels ignore src/internal

This creates a .lbbign file in src/internal. When generating barrels, any folder containing .lbbign will be skipped entirely:

• No barrel file will be created in that folder
• No child folders will be traversed
• The parent barrel will not export from the ignored folder

This is useful for internal modules, generated code, or any directory you want to exclude from your public API.

Generated Output

Given this structure:

src/
  features/
    auth/
      login.ts
      logout.ts
    users/
      create.ts
      delete.ts
  utils/
    helpers.ts

Running npx ts-barrels src --all generates:

src/
  index.ts          -> export * from './features'; export * from './utils';
  features/
    index.ts        -> export * from './auth'; export * from './users';
    auth/
      index.ts      -> export * from './login'; export * from './logout';
    users/
      index.ts      -> export * from './create'; export * from './delete';
  utils/
    index.ts        -> export * from './helpers';

License

MIT