find-installed-packages

Find installed packages.

ESM only, Node >= 20.19.

Usage

import { findByKeywords } from 'find-installed-packages'

(async () => {
  const packages = await findByKeywords(['some-keyword']) // ['pkg-a', 'pkg-b']

  // or from somewhere other than the current directory
  await findByKeywords(['some-keyword'], { cwd: './packages/app' })
}())

A package is returned when its package.json declares every keyword you ask for.

How packages are found

Packages are located by walking the declared dependency graph from cwd and asking the host runtime's module resolver where each one lives, rather than scanning node_modules folders.

That keeps results correct across layouts a node_modules scan gets wrong:

| Layout | Scanning node_modules | Resolving | | --- | --- | --- | | npm / yarn / bun, single package | works | works | | pnpm, bun --linker=isolated | relies on undocumented store internals | works | | Workspaces (tree hoisted to the repo root) | finds nothing | works | | Yarn Plug'n'Play (no node_modules at all) | finds nothing | works |

Two consequences worth knowing:

• Only declared dependencies are reported. A package present in node_modules that nothing depends on is not returned.
• Under Yarn PnP this must run inside the PnP-enabled process (the normal case for a library loaded by your app). Shelling out to a plain node will find nothing.

If cwd has no readable package.json, or one that declares no dependencies, the node_modules scan is used as a fallback.

Cache

Results are cached in the temp folder, keyed by cwd plus keywords, and invalidated when the lockfile, package.json, or top-level node_modules changes. Lockfiles are looked up from cwd upwards, so workspaces are handled.

The lockfile names come from package-manager-detector, so a new package manager arrives with a dependency bump rather than a bug report. Yarn PnP's .pnp.cjs and .pnp.data.json are watched too, since they change with the installed tree even though they are not lockfiles.

Contribute

# after fork and clone
npm install

# begin making changes
git checkout -b <branch>
npm run watch

# after making change(s)
git commit -m "<commit message>"
git push

# create PR