What is loose dependency manager?

Loose Dependency Manager (ldm) is a tool that helps you manage dependencies from various sources in a single file.

You can think of it as a sophisticated form of scp command that can be configured with a single specification file (ldm.yaml) and that supports versioning (if the remote source supports it) and locking mechanism.

Currently, it supports the following sources:

| Provider | Versioning Support | Can Download | URI Format | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | HTTP(S) | ❌ | only files | HTTP(S) URL | | GitHub | ✅ | files & directories | <github-source-id>:///path/to/file | | JSDelivr (npm) | ✅ | files & directories | <jsdelivr-npm-source-id>://default or <jsdelivr-npm-source-id>:///path/to/file | | JSDelivr (github) | ✅ | files & directories | <jsdelivr-github-source-id>:///path/to/file |

Installation

Before installing ldm, you need to have Node.js installed.

npm install -g loose-dependency-manager

Quick Start

Write a dependency specification file

You write a dependency specification file named ldm.yaml.

[!IMPORTANT] It is stronlgly recommended to set auth.token with personal access token when using GitHub as a source provider (even if you're using for public repositories). Github API imposes a harsh rate limit of 60 requests per hour for unauthenticated requests, so you may run into rate limit issues without a token.

version: "1"

dependencies:
  primitive.ts:
    uri: "@ts-essentials/ts-essentials:///lib/primitive/index.ts"
    version: latest
    destination: src/types/primitive.ts
  camel-case:
    uri: "@ts-essentials/ts-essentials:///lib/camel-case"
    version: latest
    destination: src/types/camel-case
  jquery:
    uri: jquery://default
    version: ^3.6.4
    destinations:
      - src/core.min.js
      - public/js/core.min.js
  reset.css:
    uri: https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/reset200802.css
    destination: public/css/reset.css
  pico.css:
    uri: "@picocss/pico:///css/pico.min.css"
    version: ^2.0.0
    destination: public/css/pico.min.css

sources:
  "@ts-essentials/ts-essentials":
    provider: github
    uri: ts-essentials/ts-essentials
    auth:
      token: ${GITHUB_TOKEN}
  jquery:
    provider: jsdelivr:npm
    uri: jquery
  "@picocss/pico":
    provider: jsdelivr:npm
    uri: "@picocss/pico"

config:
  envFile: .env
  deleteFilesOnRemove: true

YAML Validation for VSCode

For better editing experience, YAML validation is supported thanks to JSON schema and YAML VSCode Extension (by RedHat).

To enable YAML validation,

• Install YAML VSCode Extension (by RedHat)
• Add the following configuration to your .vscode/settings.json file.

  {
    "yaml.schemas": {
      "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ldm-org/ldm/refs/heads/master/schema.json": "**/ldm.yaml"
    }
  }

Install dependencies

Then in terminal, run the following command.

ldm install

This will produce the following file sturcture, assuming that ldm.yaml is the only file in the directory.

|- ldm.yaml
|- ldm-lock.yaml
|--- src/
|----- core.min.js
|----- types/
|------- primitive.ts
|------- camel-case/
|--------- index.ts
|--------- README.md
|--- public/
|----- css/
|------- reset.css
|------- pico.min.css
|----- js/
|------- core.min.js

The example above can be summarized as following diagram.

Documentation

Documentation is not written yet. I'll try my best to write it as soon as possible.

Examples

You can find examples at e2e test scenarios.

Compare given and expected directory in each scenario to see what the execution of scenario.ts#scenario.command will produce.

• install
• upgrade

Contribution

See Contributing Guide

License

MIT License © 2025-Present Joseph Hwang