Packmate is a modern CLI tool for managing, updating, and cleaning up your Node.js project dependencies.

It supports npm, pnpm, and yarn. With an intuitive interactive UI and powerful performance optimizations, Packmate helps you keep your project healthy and up-to-date—faster and safer than ever.

🤖 Why Packmate?

• ⚡ Performance: Faster repeat runs with caching and parallel analysis
• 🎯 Accuracy: Unused package detection with dev tool intelligence and cross-validation
• 🛡️ Safety: Smart fallback for package managers, unused packages excluded from updates
• 🎨 Clarity: Grouped UI sessions (Patch/Minor/Major) with color-coded updates
• 🔧 Flexibility: Full configuration support via packmate.config.json
• 🌍 Modern: Clean, professional English interface with intuitive workflows

🚀 Features

Performance & Optimization

• 3-Level Caching System: Memory → Disk (1hr TTL) → Network
  • First run: Standard speed
  • Second run: Faster with cached registry data
• Worker Pool Processing: Multi-core CPU utilization for file scanning (2-4x faster)
• Compressed Caching: Experimental Brotli-based cache storage
• Predictive Caching: Experimental package prediction and pre-loading
• Adaptive Concurrency: Dynamic request throttling based on CPU cores (8-16 concurrent)

Security Awareness

• Security Advisories:
  • npm audit based advisory detection
  • Direct/transitive advisory distinction
  • Security update candidates in the interactive flow
  • Transitive advisories explained without misleading direct selection

Smart Detection

• Enhanced Unused Detection:
  • Dynamic import detection: import('module')
  • Conditional require detection: try-catch, if blocks
  • DevDependencies intelligence: Recognizes build tools, linters, type definitions
  • Cross-validation: precinct + depcheck for high confidence
• Update Detection:
  • Grouped by Patch/Minor/Major with color coding
  • Unused packages are reviewed before update selection
  • Direct security advisories can be surfaced in the update flow
  • Semver-aware version comparison
• Installation Detection: Finds declared but not installed packages

UI/UX Excellence

• Grouped UI Sessions:
  • 🔹 Patch Updates (Green): Bug fixes, safe to update
  • 🔸 Minor Updates (Yellow): New features, backward compatible
  • 🔶 Major Updates (Red): Breaking changes, requires review
  • 🗑️ Unused Packages: High/Medium confidence levels
  • 📥 Not Installed: Missing declared dependencies
  • 🛡️ Security Advisories: Direct/transitive advisory distinction
• Safety Features:
  • Confirmation prompt for major updates
  • Breaking change warnings
  • Clear action summaries
• Visual Enhancements:
  • Color-coded version changes
  • Progressive feedback during analysis
  • Compact summary and final action review

Configuration & Flexibility

• Smart Package Manager Detection:
  • Auto-detects from lock files (pnpm-lock.yaml, yarn.lock, package-lock.json)
  • Verifies installation status
  • Auto-fallback to available manager with helpful tips
• Configurable Options:
  • Custom ignore patterns (glob support)
  • Analysis modes (conservative/moderate/aggressive)
  • UI customization (default selections, color schemes)
  • Cache settings (duration, location)

💾 Installation

npm install -g packmate
# or
pnpm add -g packmate
# or
yarn global add packmate

You can also run it instantly with:

npx packmate

📝 Usage

Basic Usage

From your project root, just run:

packmate

Command Line Options

packmate

Packmate is intentionally interactive. Run it from your project directory and choose updates, removals, and security actions from the guided prompts.

Typical Workflow Example:

┌  📦 Packmate: Dependency Updates & Cleanup
│
◇  Multiple lock files found. Which package manager should PackMate use?
│  pnpm

Analysis Summary
  Category   Count         Details
  Updates    7             Available package updates
  Unused     1             Possible cleanup candidates
  Missing    0             Declared but not installed
  Current    9             Already up-to-date
  Security   2 advisories  1 direct, 1 transitive

🗑️  Unused Packages (High Confidence: 1)
   Likely safe to remove
│
◇  Select packages to remove:
│  none

Security Risk: High (1)
   Update recommended
│
◇  Select security updates:
│  lodash  2 advisories

🔶 Major Updates (3)
   ⚠️  Breaking changes possible - Review carefully
│
◇  Select major updates (caution required):
│  none

Review Actions
  Security updates (1)
    - lodash (high)
  Updates (2)
    - fs-extra → 11.3.5
    - js-yaml → 4.1.1
│
◇  Proceed with 3 action(s)?
│  No
│
No changes were made.
│
└  Packmate complete! 🎉

⚙️ Requirements

• Node.js v18 or later
• Supports npm, yarn, and pnpm
• Works on Mac, Linux, and Windows

🔑 CLI Options

No extra options needed—just run packmate in your project directory. All selections (update, remove, install) are interactive.

⚙️ Configuration

Packmate supports configuration via packmate.config.json or the packmate field in your package.json.

Example packmate.config.json:

{
  "ignorePatterns": ["@types/*", "eslint-*"],
  "analysisMode": {
    "unused": "moderate",
    "devDeps": true
  },
  "ui": {
    "groupSessions": true,
    "colorScheme": "auto",
    "defaultChecked": {
      "updateAvailable": true,
      "unused": false,
      "notInstalled": true,
      "latest": false
    }
  },
  "detection": {
    "dynamicImport": true,
    "conditionalRequire": true,
    "ignoreUnused": [
      "eslint",
      "prettier",
      "jest",
      "webpack"
    ]
  }
}

Configuration Options:

• ignorePatterns: Array of glob patterns to ignore packages (e.g., ["@types/*"])
• analysisMode.unused: Detection mode - "conservative" | "moderate" | "aggressive"
• analysisMode.devDeps: Whether to analyze devDependencies separately
• ui.groupSessions: Enable grouped UI sessions (Patch/Minor/Major)
• ui.defaultChecked: Default selection states for each package type
• detection.dynamicImport: Enable dynamic import detection
• detection.conditionalRequire: Enable conditional require detection
• detection.ignoreUnused: List of packages to always ignore in unused detection

Cache Management

Packmate automatically caches registry responses for faster subsequent runs. Clear cache if needed:

# Windows
del /q %TEMP%\packmate-cache\*

# Linux/Mac
rm -rf /tmp/packmate-cache/*

Cache location:

• Windows: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\packmate-cache
• Linux/Mac: /tmp/packmate-cache

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are always welcome! Please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

💳 License

MIT