killnode 💣

Find and delete node_modules directories across your entire machine — fast, safe, and without leaving your terminal.

Inspired by npkill but rewritten from scratch in Rust, with a focus on speed, safety, and a polished user experience.

Personal note:

I originally wrote this tool as a simple script. However, when I decided to add a terminal UI and improve code readability, it turned into a complete nightmare and took much longer than expected. I ended up using AI to handle the refactoring, TUI implementation, and documentation. If you find anything strange or suboptimal, please feel free to open an issue or a PR to help improve it.

Installation

npx — no install required

The fastest way to try it. Works on any machine with Node.js installed.

npx killnode
npx killnode ~/projects

npm — global install

npm install -g killnode

Homebrew — macOS and Linux

brew tap shacript/killnode
brew install killnode

cargo

If you have a Rust toolchain installed:

cargo install killnode

Shell script — macOS and Linux

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/shacript/killnode/main/install.sh | sh

Pre-built binaries

Download the binary for your platform from the Releases page and put it somewhere on your PATH.

| Platform | File | |---|---| | macOS — Apple Silicon | killnode-aarch64-apple-darwin | | macOS — Intel | killnode-x86_64-apple-darwin | | Linux — x64 | killnode-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl | | Linux — arm64 | killnode-aarch64-unknown-linux-musl | | Windows — x64 | killnode-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.exe |

Usage

killnode                # scan the current directory
killnode ~/projects     # scan a specific directory
killnode --help         # print usage
killnode --version      # print version

killnode scans the path you give it (or . if you don't give one), finds every node_modules directory, and presents them in a list. From there you pick what to delete and confirm. That's it.

Sensitive paths

killnode automatically detects directories that look like they might be managed by an application or the operating system. These entries are marked with a red ⚠ in front of their path and are not pre-selected.

You can still select sensitive entries manually with Space, or include all of them at once with A. When at least one sensitive entry is selected, the confirmation popup shows a warning before anything is deleted.

The detection rules are intentionally conservative. It is better to flag something as sensitive and let you handle it manually than to silently delete something load-bearing.

Locations that are always flagged:

• ~/.config/** — application configuration
• ~/.local/share/** — XDG application data
• ~/.cache/** — caches managed by other tools
• Any other hidden top-level directory under ~ (e.g. ~/.myapp)
• /Applications/Foo.app/** — macOS application bundles
• AppData\Roaming\** — Windows roaming application data
• AppData\Local\** — Windows local application data (with exceptions below)
• UNC network paths containing hidden directory segments

Locations that look sensitive but are safe to delete:

• ~/.npm and ~/.pnpm — package manager download caches; deleting them just means the next install re-downloads packages
• AppData\Local\.cache, AppData\Local\.npm, AppData\Local\.pnpm — same reasoning on Windows

Building from source

You need a Rust toolchain (stable, 1.85 or newer).

git clone https://github.com/shacript/killnode
cd killnode
cargo build --release
./target/release/killnode

To install it to your Cargo bin directory:

cargo install --path .

License

MIT