I literally have a Claude Code skill called "/delib" that takes takes in any nodejs project/library and converts it to a dependency-less project only using the standard library.
It started as a what-if joke, but it's turned out to be amazing. So yeah, npmjs.com is just reference site for me now, and node_modules stays tiny.
And the output is honestly superior. I end up with smaller projects, clean code, and a huge suite of property-based tests from the refactor process. And it's fully automatic.
It varies from project to project, but applications benefit a lot more than libraries. When I de-lib a normal express app it might add a few hundred lines of code and a few thousand new tests, but if I de-lib an library then depends on how ancient it is. The older the library is, the higher the chances that most of what it needs is built-in to the standard library.
Thank you. I have been thinking about the same approach. However my worry is the open source libraries often gets more eyeballs and CPU cycles and ends up much more refined over a period of time.
It started as a what-if joke, but it's turned out to be amazing. So yeah, npmjs.com is just reference site for me now, and node_modules stays tiny.
And the output is honestly superior. I end up with smaller projects, clean code, and a huge suite of property-based tests from the refactor process. And it's fully automatic.