deps-audit

Lightweight dependency health checker for Node.js projects. Zero external dependencies.

Scans your package.json and checks every dependency against the npm registry for deprecation notices, staleness, license issues, and funding needs.

Installation

npm install -g deps-audit-cli

Or use directly with npx:

npx deps-audit-cli

Usage

# Audit the current directory
deps-audit

# Audit a specific project
deps-audit ./my-project

# JSON output for CI/CD pipelines
deps-audit --json

# Strict mode (exit code 1 if issues found)
deps-audit --strict

# Production dependencies only
deps-audit --no-dev

# Combine flags
deps-audit --no-dev --strict --json

What It Checks

| Check | Issue Level | Description | |-------|------------|-------------| | Deprecated | Error | Package is marked deprecated on npm | | Stale (>2 years) | Error | No updates in over 2 years | | Aging (>1 year) | Warning | No updates in over 1 year | | No license | Error | No license field in package metadata | | Copyleft license | Warning | GPL, AGPL, or similar copyleft license | | Non-standard license | Warning | License not in common permissive set | | Funding | Info | Package has funding/sponsorship info |

Output

Terminal (default)

Color-coded report with pass/warn/fail indicators for each dependency, followed by a summary of all issues and warnings.

JSON (--json)

{
  "project": "my-app",
  "scanned": 12,
  "timestamp": "2026-03-10T12:00:00.000Z",
  "results": [
    {
      "name": "express",
      "version": "^4.18.0",
      "deprecated": null,
      "staleness": {
        "status": "ok",
        "lastUpdated": "45 days ago",
        "days": 45
      },
      "license": {
        "status": "ok",
        "identifier": "MIT"
      },
      "funding": null,
      "error": null
    }
  ],
  "summary": {
    "issues": [],
    "warnings": [],
    "hasIssues": false,
    "hasWarnings": false
  }
}

Exit Codes

| Code | Meaning | |------|---------| | 0 | No issues (or --strict not set) | | 1 | Issues found (--strict mode only) | | 2 | Fatal error (missing package.json, etc.) |

CI/CD Integration

Add to your CI pipeline to catch dependency issues early:

# GitHub Actions example
- name: Audit dependencies
  run: npx deps-audit-cli --strict --json > audit-report.json

# GitLab CI example
audit:
  script:
    - npx deps-audit-cli --strict
  allow_failure: false

Requirements

• Node.js 18 or later
• No external dependencies (uses only Node.js built-in modules)

License

MIT - see LICENSE for details.

Author

AI Hustle Lab / agent20usd

Contributing

Issues and pull requests welcome at github.com/agent20usd/deps-audit.