thanks-to

Generate beautiful acknowledgments for your project's dependencies.
Perfect for open source credits, docs, audit reports, or legal compliance.

Features

• ✅ Auto-detect dependencies and devDependencies
• ✅ Separate direct and transitive dependencies
• ✅ Export to Markdown, JSON, CSV, and HTML
• ✅ Filter by license name or package
• ✅ Optional: Include full license content per package
• ✅ Monorepo support – auto-scan packages/*, apps/* with --mono-repo
• ✅ Works via CLI or programmatic API

Installation

npm install --save-dev thanks-to

Or run directly without install:

npx thanks-to

CLI Usage

npx thanks-to [options]

Options

| Option | Description | Default | | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------- |----------------- | | --help | Show usage instructions and available options | - | | --mono-repo | Scan all package.json in packages/** and apps/** | false | | --dir <path> | Manually specify project folder to scan | . | | --transitive | Include transitive (indirect) dependencies | false | | --report <types> | Export formats: json,md,csv,html (comma-separated) | json,md,csv,html | | --output <dir> | Custom output folder | ./thanks-to |
| --silent | Suppress logs | false | | --only <group> | deps, devDeps, or all – choose which group to include | all | | --only-license <list> | Only include licenses in list (e.g. mit,apache) | - | | --exclude-license <list> | Exclude licenses (e.g. gpl,agpl) | - | | --include-package <list> | Only include package names in list (e.g. express,vue) | - | | --exclude-package <list> | Exclude package names (e.g. left-pad,lodash) | - | | --with-license-text | Include full license text from packages if available | false |

Examples

# Export default deps into all formats
npx thanks-to

# Export only markdown
npx thanks-to --report md

# Include devDependencies and transitive packages
npx thanks-to --only all --transitive

# Only include MIT or Apache licensed packages
npx thanks-to --only-license mit,apache

# Exclude GPL or AGPL licensed packages
npx thanks-to --exclude-license gpl,agpl

# Only include express and chalk
npx thanks-to --include-package express,chalk

# Export only devDependencies to JSON
npx thanks-to --only devDeps --report json

# Include license text and export as HTML
npx thanks-to --with-license-text --report html

# Export into docs folder
npx thanks-to --output ./docs/credits

# Scan all packages in monorepo (packages/* and apps/*)
npx thanks-to --mono-repo

# Manually scan a single project
npx thanks-to --dir ./packages/docs --report md

API Usage

You can use thanks-to in both ESM and CommonJS environments.

ESM

import { generateThanksData, exportReports } from 'thanks-to';

const data = await generateThanksData({ transitive: true });
await exportReports(data, ['md'], './output');

CommonJS

const { generateThanksData, exportReports } = require('thanks-to');

(async () => {
  const data = await generateThanksData({ transitive: true });
  await exportReports(data, ['md'], './output');
})();

If you're using TypeScript, the library automatically infers types from exported definitions.

API Options

Options {
  dir: string;
  monoRepo: boolean;
  transitive: boolean;
  withLicenseText: boolean;
  only: 'all' | 'deps' | 'devDeps';
  onlyLicense?: string[] | null;
  excludeLicense?: string[] | null;
  includePackage?: string[] | null;
  excludePackage?: string[] | null;
}

Output Formats

JSON

Structured data grouped by type (direct, transitive):

{
  "dependencies": {
    "direct": [
      {
        "name": "express",
        "version": "4.18.2",
        "license": "MIT",
		"author": "...",
		"description": "..."
        "repository": {
		   "url": "https://www.npmjs.com/package/express",
		   "git": "https://github.com/express/express"
		}
        "licenseContent": "..." // if --with-license-text used
      }
    ]
  }
}

Use case

• Add credit to the open-source community
• Show dependencies in published research or products
• Required for compliance in some orgs
• Just be a good human

Changelog

See full release notes in CHANGELOG.md

License

MIT © Yuki