Rev-dep

Capabilities  •   Installation  •   Documentation  •   Exploratory Toolkit  •   Newsletter

Dependency analysis and optimization toolkit for modern JavaScript and TypeScript codebases.
Enforce dependency graph hygiene and remove unused code with a very fast CLI.

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About 📣

As codebases scale, maintaining a mental map of dependencies becomes impossible. Rev-dep is a high-speed static analysis tool designed to enforce architecture integrity and dependency hygiene across large-scale JS/TS projects.

Think of Rev-dep as a high-speed linter for your dependency graph.

Consolidate fragmented, sequential checks from multiple slow tools into a single, high-performance engine. Rev-dep executes a full suite of governance checks - including circularity, orphans, module boundaries and more, in one parallelized pass. Implemented in Go to bypass the performance bottlenecks of Node-based analysis, it can audit a 500k+ LoC project in approximately 150ms. See the performance comparison

Automated Codebase Governance

Rev-dep moves beyond passive scanning to active enforcement, answering (and failing CI for) the hard questions:

• Architecture Integrity: "Is my 'Domain A' illegally importing from 'Domain B'?".
• Dead Code & Bloat: "Are these files unreachable, or are these node_modules unused?".
• Refactoring Safety: "Which entry points actually use this utility, and are there circular chains?".
• Workspace Hygiene: "Are my imports consistent and are all dependencies declared?".

Rev-dep serves as a high-speed gatekeeper for your CI, ensuring your dependency graph remains lean and your architecture stays intact as you iterate.

Why Rev-dep? 🤔

🏗️ First-class monorepo support

Designed for modern workspaces (pnpm, yarn, npm). Rev-dep natively resolves package.json exports/imports maps, TypeScript aliases and traces dependencies across package boundaries.

🛡️ Config-Based Codebase Governance

Move beyond passive scanning. Use the configuration engine to enforce Module Boundaries and Import Conventions. Execute a full suite of hygiene checks (circularity, orphans, unused modules and more) in a single, parallelized pass that serves as a high-speed gatekeeper for your CI.

🔍 Exploratory Toolkit

CLI toolkit that helps debug issues with dependencies between files. Understand transitive relation between files and fix issues.

⚡ Built for Speed and CI Efficiency

Implemented in Go to eliminate the performance tax of Node-based analysis. By processing files in parallel, Rev-dep offers 17x-90x faster execution than alternatives, significantly reducing CI costs and developer wait-states.

Rev-dep can audit a 500k+ LoC project in around 150ms. See the performance comparison

Capabilities 🚀

Governance and maintenance (config-based) 🛡️

Use rev-dep config run to execute multiple checks in one pass for all packages.

Available checks:

• moduleBoundaries - enforce architecture boundaries between modules.
• importConventions - enforce import style conventions (offers autofix).
• unusedExportsDetection - detect exports that are never used (offers autofix).
• orphanFilesDetection - detect dead/orphan files (offers autofix).
• unusedNodeModulesDetection - detect dependencies declared but not used.
• missingNodeModulesDetection - detect imports missing from package json.
• unresolvedImportsDetection - detect unresolved import requests.
• circularImportsDetection - detect circular imports.
• duplicatedCodeDetection - detect copy-pasted code (repeated blocks and JSX elements).
• devDepsUsageOnProdDetection - detect dev dependencies used in production code.
• restrictedImportsDetection - block importing denied files/modules from selected entry points.
• restrictedImportersDetection - whitelist which entry points may transitively reach a set of files/modules.
• restrictedDirectImportersDetection - constrain which files may directly import a set of files/modules (non-transitive).

Exploratory analysis (CLI-based) 🔍

Use CLI commands for ad-hoc dependency exploration:

• entry-points - discover project entry points.
• files - list dependency tree files for a given entry point.
• resolve - trace dependency paths between files (who imports this file).
• imported-by - list direct importers of a file.
• circular - list circular dependency chains.
• duplicated-code - find copy-pasted code blocks and JSX elements.
• node-modules - inspect used, unused, missing, and installed node modules.
• lines-of-code - count effective LOC.
• unresolved - list imports that could not be resolved, grouped by file.
• list-cwd-files - list all source code files in CWD
• debug - inspect what rev-dep parses, resolves, and discovers internally.

Installation 📦

Full documentation: rev-dep.com/docs/intro

Install locally to set up project check scripts

yarn add -D rev-dep

npm install -D rev-dep

pnpm add -D rev-dep

Create config file for a quick start:

npx rev-dep config init

Install globally to use as a CLI tool:

yarn global add rev-dep

npm install -g rev-dep

pnpm global add rev-dep

Step-by-step integration guides

Follow the guide that matches your project to get from zero to a working setup:

• Monorepo integration guide - for pnpm/yarn/npm workspaces.
• Single workspace integration guide - for single-package projects.

Quick Examples 💡

A few instant-use examples to get a feel for the tool:

# Detect circular imports/dependencies
rev-dep circular

# Find copy-pasted code
rev-dep duplicated-code

# Detect unused node modules
rev-dep node-modules unused

# List all entry points in the project
rev-dep entry-points

# Check which files an entry point imports
rev-dep files --entry-point src/index.ts

# Find every entry point that depends on a file
rev-dep resolve --file src/utils/math.ts

# Resolve dependency path between files
rev-dep resolve --file src/utils/math.ts --entry-point src/index.ts

Config-Based Checks 🛡️

Rev-dep provides a configuration system for orchestrating project checks. The config approach is designed for speed and is the preferred way of implementing project checks because it can execute all checks in a single pass, significantly faster than multiple running individual commands separately.

Available checks are: