globulesce

Need a list of files matching a set of glob patterns? Need to exclude certain subfolders? Need it fast? Try globulesce! It's as fast as its name is gross.

[![Build Status][travis-image]][travis-url] [![Coverage Status][coveralls-image]][coveralls-url]

Fully async, promise-based API. Now with TypeScript support and ESM!

Requirements

• Node.js 22+ (uses native ESM and modern JavaScript features)

Installation

npm install globulesce

API

scan(path, match, ignore, options)

Returns a Promise<string[]> containing absolute file paths matching the specified patterns.

Parameters:

• path (string): The directory to start scanning in (inclusive)
• match (string | string[], optional): A glob pattern or array of patterns to match files against. Defaults to ['**/*.*']
• ignore (string[], optional): Directories to ignore. Defaults to ['.git', 'node_modules']. Pass an empty array to include these folders
• options (ScanOptions, optional): Configuration options

Options (ScanOptions):

interface ScanOptions {
  directories?: boolean  // Return directories instead of files
  dot?: boolean         // Include dotfiles (default: true)
  nocase?: boolean      // Case-insensitive matching (default: true)
  matchBase?: boolean   // Match basename only (default: false)
}

TypeScript Usage

import { scan } from 'globulesce'

// Get all JavaScript files
const files = await scan('./', ['**/*.js'], ['.git', 'node_modules'])

// Get directories only
const dirs = await scan('./', ['*'], ['.git', 'node_modules'], { directories: true })

// With type safety
const results: string[] = await scan('./src', '**/*.ts')

JavaScript (ESM) Usage

import { scan } from 'globulesce'

const files = await scan('./', ['**/*.js'], ['.git', 'node_modules'])

Legacy CommonJS Migration

v2.0.0 is a breaking change. This library is now ESM-only and requires Node.js 22+.

If you're upgrading from v1.x:

// Old (v1.x - CommonJS)
const glob = require('globulesce')
glob('./', ['**/*.js']).then(files => { ... })

// New (v2.x - ESM)
import { scan } from 'globulesce'
const files = await scan('./', ['**/*.js'])

Migration Steps:

1. Upgrade to Node.js 22 or higher
2. Add "type": "module" to your package.json
3. Change require() to import
4. Use top-level await or keep using .then()

The ignore directory ignores all directories with a matching name regardless of depth

For my purposes, when I need to ignore a directory, I always want to ignore it. This may not be helpful. If you need different behavior, send a PR :D

Dependencies

This library does almost nothing and relies almost entirely on

• minimatch

Why Reinvent The Wheel!?

I needed a way to scan a directory tree for files that wouldn't first eagerly scan .git and node_modules. There are several NPM libs that promise to do this but don't. The end result is that you wait a few seconds whilst they tear through an entire tree and then proceed to toss a bunch of results out (or don't even do that).

None of my specific use cases care about what are in .git or node_modules and are time sensitive.