How to view the dependency tree of a given npm module?

Question

How can I get the tree of a module available to npm, but not installed locally ?

npm ll does the job for locally installed packages. But it doesn't work for modules not installed or modules installed globally.

I tried npm list bower but that's not it.

If all you're after is a dependency graph, http://npm.broofa.com and https://npm.anvaka.com will do this for publicly published modules. — broofa, Aug 23 '20 at 06:05
@broofa thanks for those links ! I suggest you post them as answers. I checked both on @angular/cli and npm.anvaka.com is sluggish and unreadable, but npm.broofa.com does a great job out of it — BiAiB, Aug 25 '20 at 07:11

score 397 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 13 '23 at 08:20

397

You can generate NPM dependency trees without the need of installing a dependency by using the command

npm ls --all

This will generate a dependency tree for the project at the current directory and print it to the console. (The all option shows all transitive dependencies, not just those directly depended upon by the current project - see the documentation.)

You can get the dependency tree of a specific dependency like so:

npm ls [dependency]

You can also set the maximum depth level by doing

npm ls --depth=[depth]

Note that you can only view the dependency tree of a dependency that you have installed either globally, or locally to the NPM project.

edited Jun 13 '23 at 08:20

Steve Chambers

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answered Oct 31 '17 at 16:34

mgthomas99

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Your second one only prints the packages that depend on [dependency], it doesn't print dependencies of [dependency]. OP also specifically said that that is not what he's looking for. – FINDarkside Jan 04 '18 at 09:44
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Use [`-prod`](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/ls#prod--production) to only list production dependencies (and no devDependencies). – pcworld Feb 11 '18 at 02:52
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npm list and npm ls both read the node_modules folder, you aren't able to get a tree without installing the dependencies first. – worc Oct 12 '18 at 21:44
npm list --depth=1 for one level – mintedsky Jul 26 '19 at 16:53
How come this is not documented? https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v7/commands – Reto Höhener Jun 01 '21 at 00:39
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@RetoHöhener It's documented under the name [`npm ls`](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v7/commands/npm-ls). `npm list` is one of the command's aliases. – akseli Aug 27 '21 at 10:13
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Using `npm list --prod --all` I was able to get the full tree – Ed Randall Oct 08 '21 at 14:21
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@EdRandall indeed, `npm ls -a` does the job well. – tom Oct 09 '21 at 17:14
This command only works for all tree, not a package dependencies. – Logus Graphics Jan 16 '23 at 11:07

score 154 · Accepted Answer · edited Dec 20 '18 at 11:09

154

You can use the npm-remote-ls module. You can install it globally:

npm install -g npm-remote-ls

And then call:

npm-remote-ls bower

Alternatively, npm@5.2.0 installed then you can use npx and avoid globally installing the command - just call:

npx npm-remote-ls bower

edited Dec 20 '18 at 11:09

JustCarty

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answered Sep 23 '14 at 22:37

Gergo Erdosi

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How to see modules that depend on a given module? – orad Sep 21 '15 at 01:40
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this is still needed? even with newer versions of npm? – Simon_Weaver May 30 '16 at 07:23
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for a specific version you can use this syntax `npm-remote-ls primeng@1.0.0-beta.7` – Simon_Weaver May 30 '16 at 07:26
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@orad: If it is one you have installed, npm ls – Paul Lynch Dec 08 '16 at 21:47
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Is `bower` a bad example? When I install `npm-remote-ls` globally and then run `npm-remote-ls bower`, the only response I get is: `└─ bower@1.8.13`. – When I run `npm-remote-ls jasmine` I actually get something that looks like a _**tree**_.(!) – Henke Mar 09 '22 at 13:22

Stan Bondi · Answer 3 · 2018-04-20T13:51:09.033

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This site allows you to view a packages tree as a node graph in 2D or 3D.

http://npm.anvaka.com/#/view/2d/waterline

Great work from @Avanka!

edited Apr 20 '18 at 13:51

answered Jun 22 '16 at 08:56

Stan Bondi

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Amazing "http://npm.anvaka.com/#/view/2d/no-one-left-behind" "Depends on every package in npm". :D – OZZIE Feb 21 '19 at 13:54
Crashes the heck out of Chrome 79.0.3945.130 (Official Build) (64-bit) on Mac – Brian Ogden Feb 15 '20 at 02:34
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Useless for private modules – Dragas Apr 26 '22 at 11:48
this is what i've been looking for, amazing! – Bekti Galan Nov 02 '22 at 03:51

golopot · Answer 4 · 2018-10-25T02:13:05.450

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Here is the unpowerful official command:

npm view <PACKAGE> dependencies

It prints only the direct dependencies, not the whole tree.

edited Oct 25 '18 at 02:13

answered Jul 16 '17 at 03:11

golopot

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Does the package have to be installed? `.\npm view core-js dependencies` returns nothing on my machine. – duct_tape_coder Jun 12 '19 at 16:22
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@duct_tape_coder No, it doesn't have to be installed. `core-js` has no dependencies. – Cameron Hudson Mar 19 '20 at 15:56

Alexey Prokhorov · Answer 5 · 2022-12-19T05:33:26.443

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You can use howfat which also displays dependency statistics:

npx howfat jasmine

screensot

edited Dec 19 '22 at 05:33

answered Nov 12 '19 at 15:47

Alexey Prokhorov

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score 26 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 08 '19 at 20:39

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If you want to get the actually dependency path of specific package and want to know why you have it, you can simply ask yarn why <MODULE>. example:

    $> yarn why mime-db
    yarn why v1.5.1
    [1/4] Why do we have the module "mime-db"...?
    [2/4] Initialising dependency graph...
    [3/4] Finding dependency...
    [4/4] Calculating file sizes...
    => Found "mime-db@1.37.0"
    info Reasons this module exists
       - "coveralls#request#mime-types" depends on it
       - Hoisted from "coveralls#request#mime-types#mime-db"
    info Disk size without dependencies: "196kB"
    info Disk size with unique dependencies: "196kB"
    info Disk size with transitive dependencies: "196kB"
    info Number of shared dependencies: 0
    Done in 0.65s.

answered Feb 08 '19 at 20:39

msangel

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But it doesn't which version of which things, and which versions they explicitly bring in. This output is borderline useless in diagnosing dependency issues. – PlexQ Apr 10 '22 at 03:10
`pnpm why` also works. – Kartik Soneji Aug 16 '22 at 16:30
But I want to see the full tree which led to this – Yehuda Schwartz Jul 28 '23 at 17:12

score 21 · Answer 7 · answered Jul 20 '22 at 19:45

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This command output all modules with dependencies in a tree structure:

npm ls -a

answered Jul 20 '22 at 19:45

alanextar

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score 19 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

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View All the metadata about npm module

npm view mongoose(module name)

View All Dependencies of module

npm view mongoose dependencies

View All Version or Versions module

npm view mongoose version
npm view mongoose versions

View All the keywords

npm view mongoose keywords

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Apr 19 '19 at 13:27

Yogendra Singh

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score 9 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 26 '21 at 09:46

If you are using yarn, then you can go with yarn list from the root directory of the project. It'll give you a tree like structure of all the transitive dependencies like below:

├─ @ampproject/toolbox-core@2.7.4
│  ├─ cross-fetch@3.0.6
│  └─ lru-cache@6.0.0
├─ @ampproject/toolbox-optimizer@2.7.0-alpha.1
│  ├─ @ampproject/toolbox-core@^2.6.0
│  ├─ @ampproject/toolbox-runtime-version@^2.7.0-alpha.1
│  ├─ @ampproject/toolbox-script-csp@^2.5.4
│  ├─ @ampproject/toolbox-validator-rules@^2.5.4
│  ├─ abort-controller@3.0.0
│  ├─ cross-fetch@3.0.5
│  ├─ cross-fetch@3.0.5
│  │  └─ node-fetch@2.6.0
│  ├─ cssnano-preset-simple@1.2.0
│  │  ├─ caniuse-lite@^1.0.30001093
│  │  ├─ postcss@^7.0.32
│  │  └─ postcss@7.0.35
│  │     ├─ chalk@^2.4.2
│  │     ├─ source-map@^0.6.1
│  │     └─ supports-color@^6.1.0

score 5 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 31 '20 at 15:15

To get it as a list:

% npx npm-remote-ls --flatten dugite -d false -o false
[
  'dugite@1.91.3',
  'checksum@0.1.1',
  'progress@2.0.3',
  'mkdirp@0.5.5',
  'rimraf@2.7.1',
  'tar@4.4.13',
  'optimist@0.3.7',
  'got@9.6.0',
  'minimist@1.2.5',
  'chownr@1.1.4',
  'glob@7.1.6',
  'fs-minipass@1.2.7',
  'minizlib@1.3.3',
  'minipass@2.9.0',
  'safe-buffer@5.2.1',
  'yallist@3.1.1',
  'wordwrap@0.0.3',
  '@szmarczak/http-timer@1.1.2',
  'cacheable-request@6.1.0',
  '@sindresorhus/is@0.14.0',
  'decompress-response@3.3.0',
  'duplexer3@0.1.4',
  'lowercase-keys@1.0.1',
  'mimic-response@1.0.1',
  'get-stream@4.1.0',
  'to-readable-stream@1.0.0',
  'p-cancelable@1.1.0',
  'url-parse-lax@3.0.0',
  'fs.realpath@1.0.0',
  'inflight@1.0.6',
  'inherits@2.0.4',
  'once@1.4.0',
  'path-is-absolute@1.0.1',
  'minimatch@3.0.4',
  'defer-to-connect@1.1.3',
  'clone-response@1.0.2',
  'get-stream@5.2.0',
  'http-cache-semantics@4.1.0',
  'lowercase-keys@2.0.0',
  'responselike@1.0.2',
  'keyv@3.1.0',
  'pump@3.0.0',
  'prepend-http@2.0.0',
  'normalize-url@4.5.0',
  'wrappy@1.0.2',
  'brace-expansion@1.1.11',
  'json-buffer@3.0.0',
  'end-of-stream@1.4.4',
  'concat-map@0.0.1',
  'balanced-match@1.0.0'
]

This package breaks for large lists of deps (try `lighthouse` for an example). — Connor Clark, Oct 23 '21 at 08:23

zubko · Answer 11 · 2023-03-01T14:22:56.147

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There is also a nice web app to see the dependencies in a weighted map kind of view.

For example:

https://bundlephobia.com/result?p=sanitize-html@1.19.1

edited Mar 01 '23 at 14:22

answered Apr 11 '20 at 11:16

zubko

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I've checked the link - it works for me as of today. Maybe it was down for a while – zubko Mar 01 '23 at 14:18

Robert Brisita · Answer 12 · 2019-04-17T20:49:36.647

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Unfortunately npm still doesn't have a way to view dependencies of non-installed packages. Not even a package's page list the dependencies correctly.

Luckily installing yarn:

brew install yarn

Allows one to use its info command to view accurate dependencies:

yarn info @angular/router@4.4.7 dependencies

yarn info @angular/router@4.4.7 peerDependencies

edited Apr 17 '19 at 20:49

answered Apr 17 '19 at 20:43

Robert Brisita

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Why does yarn provide and accurate way to view dependencies and npm provides NO way to view dependencies, could this be because npm is not deterministic and yarn is? – Brian Ogden Feb 15 '20 at 02:53

How to view the dependency tree of a given npm module?

12 Answers12

View All the metadata about npm module

View All Dependencies of module

View All Version or Versions module

View All the keywords

Linked

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