CodewrightConsequence-aware terminal workflows

Prune extraneous dependencies

Medium risk
What do risk levels mean?
Read-only
Inspects state without changing anything.
Low risk
Reversible with a routine follow-up command.
Medium risk
Changes state; undo path documented.
Destructive
Deletes or overwrites; confirmation required.

Identifies packages not declared by the project, then removes them from node_modules while preserving declared production and development dependencies.

nodenpmprune

Commands

Identify packages marked extraneous before removing them

npm ls --depth=0

Remove extraneous packages without executing lifecycle scripts

npm prune --ignore-scripts

Verification

npm ls --depth=0

No direct package is marked extraneous after pruning.

Undo

Not undoable

Undeclared packages and manual changes removed from node_modules cannot be reconstructed from package metadata.

Pitfalls

  • Declare intentionally used packages before pruning; relying on undeclared modules makes builds non-reproducible.
  • Lifecycle scripts are disabled while pruning; packages that depend on them may need separately reviewed setup.
  • Manually edited files under node_modules are removed and should not be treated as source code.

Related