Unnecessary File Police 🚔

A pre-publish hook that screams at you if you are about to publish unnecessary files to npm.

The Problem

People accidentally publish massive files to npm (Photoshop files, local databases, test videos), creating "bloatware" packages that waste bandwidth and storage space.

How It Works

You run npx diet-police (or add it to prepublishOnly). It scans the folder and ignores standard code files. It alerts you:

⚠️  Warning: You are about to publish 'design-mockup.psd' (55MB). Add to .npmignore?

Why It's Unique

Existing tools just tell you the size of the package. This one identifies suspicious file types that don't belong in a registry.

Installation

npm install unnecessary-file-police --save-dev

Usage

As a CLI Tool

# Scan current directory
npx diet-police

# Scan specific directory
npx diet-police --directory ./my-package

# Set custom threshold (default: 10MB)
npx diet-police --threshold 5242880

# Verbose output
npx diet-police --verbose

# Auto-fix: automatically add suggestions to .npmignore
npx diet-police --auto-fix

As a Pre-publish Hook

Add to your package.json:

{
  "scripts": {
    "prepublishOnly": "diet-police"
  }
}

Now it will automatically run before you publish to npm!

What It Detects

Suspicious File Extensions

• Design files: .psd, .ai, .sketch, .fig, .xd
• Videos: .mp4, .mov, .avi, .mkv
• Databases: .db, .sqlite, .sqlite3
• Archives: .zip, .tar, .gz, .rar, .7z
• Executables: .exe, .dmg, .pkg, .deb, .rpm, .iso
• Documents: .pdf, .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx
• Audio files: .wav, .flac, .aac, .ogg, .wma

Large Files

Any file larger than 10MB (configurable) that doesn't have a standard code extension will be flagged.

Allowed Extensions (Ignored)

Standard code and configuration files are ignored:

• JavaScript/TypeScript: .js, .ts, .jsx, .tsx
• Styles: .css, .scss, .sass, .less
• Config: .json, .yml, .yaml, .md, .txt
• Build files: .html, .vue, .svelte
• Other languages: .py, .java, .c, .cpp, .go, .rs, etc.

Examples

Example Output

🔍 Scanning for unnecessary files...

⚠️  Found 3 suspicious file(s):

1. design-mockup.psd (55.2MB)
   Reason: suspicious extension

2. test-video.mp4 (12.8MB)
   Reason: large file

3. local.db (2.1MB)
   Reason: suspicious extension

Total size of suspicious files: 70.1MB

💡 Suggested .npmignore entries:
  **/*.psd
  **/*.mp4
  **/*.db

💡 Run with --auto-fix to automatically add these to .npmignore

🚨 Please review these files before publishing!

Auto-fix Mode

npx diet-police --auto-fix

This will automatically add the suggested patterns to your .npmignore file.

API Usage

const UnnecessaryFilePolice = require('unnecessary-file-police');

const police = new UnnecessaryFilePolice({
  threshold: 10 * 1024 * 1024, // 10MB
  suspiciousExtensions: ['.psd', '.mp4'],
  allowedExtensions: ['.js', '.json']
});

const suspiciousFiles = await police.scanDirectory('./my-package');
const suggestions = police.generateNpmignoreSuggestions(suspiciousFiles);

console.log('Suspicious files:', suspiciousFiles);
console.log('Npmignore suggestions:', suggestions);

Configuration Options

| Option | Type | Default | Description | |--------|------|---------|-------------| | threshold | number | 10485760 (10MB) | File size threshold in bytes | | suspiciousExtensions | array | See above | File extensions to flag | | allowedExtensions | array | See above | File extensions to ignore |

Contributing

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

License

MIT © [Your Name]

Related Tools

• npm-pack-list - Shows what files will be included in your npm package
• size-limit - Limit the size of your npm package

Stop bloatware before it happens! 🚔📦