CleanDeps CLI 🧼

I got tired of doing the same “fix” every time a Node project randomly decided to misbehave:

delete node_modules → reinstall → pray 🙃

So I built CleanDeps CLI — a tiny command-line tool that turns that routine into one safe, repeatable command.

This repo is also me learning how to build a proper CLI (step-by-step, commit-by-commit).

What it does

• ✅ Verifies you’re inside a Node project (checks for package.json)
• ✅ Detects whether node_modules exists (and treats it safely)
• ✅ Delete node_modules + reinstall dependencies
• ✅ Skips cleaning if node_modules doesn't exist and installs directly
• ✅ Supported package managers : npm,bun and yarn

Why not just rm -rf node_modules && npm i?

You totally can. This just makes it:

• cross-platform friendly (macOS / Linux / Windows)
• safer (guardrails so you don’t delete the wrong folder)
• repeatable (same steps every time, easy to share with teammates)
• a real tool (flags like --dry-run, modes like --hard, etc. coming soon)

Usage

Installation

npm install -g cleandeps-cli

How to run

cd into your project and run:

cleandeps

Or run without installing:

npx cleandeps-cli

Development

Run locally while developing

This project uses npm link so I can test the command globally on my machine without publishing anything.

npm link
cleandeps