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npm diff

Summary

Add a new command that enables diff workflows (similar to git diff) for packages published in the registry.

Motivation

  • Package Consumers: Complements npm audit and npm outdated workflows by providing insight on what changed across different versions of a package.
  • Package Authors: Enables diff packlist-tracked-only file changes prior to publishing a new version of a package, or while debugging past changes.

Detailed Explanation

Introduce a new npm diff command that accepts one or more package specs and uses these specs to compare files and print diff patches. Contents are fetched using pacote, accepting any type of specs that the npm installer understands.

npm diff <spec>

Using a single <spec> allows users to retrieve diff output between an existing valid version of a package with the same name found in the actual dependency tree and the exact <spec> match from the registry.

npm diff <spec-a> <spec-b>

Fetches/reads contents of two versions of a package, represented by <spec-a> and <spec-b> and prints diff output.

npm diff (no arguments)

Meant as a helper tool to package authors, prints diff output between the current file system dirs/files (tracked by packlist) and the last published version of that package.

Rationale

  • A very common workflow is using npm outdated to figure out what dependencies need update and then manually reviewing what changed in between the current version you have in your project and whatever you can update to. That workflow involves multiple steps, some of them being extra mental hurdle (such as keeping track of the semver versions change and their meaning) some other very manual such as jumping around to repos, scanning through changelogs, veryfing semver contract is respected, etc.
  • It feels very natural to have a npm diff from the point of view of a user of git diffs - It does provide much more quick insight and transparency on code that makes its way into our projects in a (medium) that most developers are already familiar with.

Alternatives

  • Not have a native npm diff command and deffer to userland solutions tools.

Implementation

Reads two different specs using pacote and run a diff of each file, providing an usable patch output for users to work with.

Prior Art