deadleaf

A CLI that finds unused files, exports, and dependencies in a TypeScript/JavaScript project - with a confidence score and a reason for every result, instead of a flat yes/no.

Status: published on npm. Core detection works - see Known limitations below.

Why confidence scores?

Most dead-code tools give you a binary "unused" flag. In practice that's often wrong - a barrel file's exports are meant to be used externally, a devDependency might be invoked through an npm script instead of an import. deadleaf tries to be honest about how sure it actually is, and tells you why, so you're not blindly deleting things a tool was overconfident about.

Installation

npm install -g deadleaf

Or run it without installing:

npx deadleaf scan

From source (for contributing)

git clone https://github.com/codebyrashel/deadleaf.git
cd deadleaf
npm install
npm run build
npm link

Usage

deadleaf scan [path-to-tsconfig]

• path-to-tsconfig - optional, defaults to ./tsconfig.json
• --json - output machine-readable JSON instead of formatted text, for scripting or CI

Examples

# Scan the current project
deadleaf scan

# Scan a project in another directory
deadleaf scan ../my-other-project/tsconfig.json

# Get JSON output
deadleaf scan --json

Example output

$ deadleaf scan

Scanning using: ./tsconfig.json

Summary: 3 possible issue(s) — 0 file(s), 1 export(s), 2 dependency(s)

Unused exports (1):
  85%  DEFAULT_IGNORE_DIRS  src/analyzers/shared.ts

Unused dependencies (2):
  15%  tsdown  (devDependency)
       Invoked in npm script "build" — likely a build/CLI tool, not meant to be imported.
  50%  typescript  (devDependency)
       Dev dependency with no import and no matching npm script. Could be a build tool used via config file.

What it checks

• Unused files - files never imported anywhere in the project (entry points like index.ts/cli.ts/main.ts, test files like *.test.ts/*.spec.ts, and files inside common build/generated directories — node_modules, .next, dist, build, out, generated, coverage, .turbo, .cache, .git — are excluded)
• Unused exports - exported functions, classes, and variables never referenced outside the file that declares them (type-only exports - interfaces, type aliases - are skipped in this version; barrel files like index.ts get lower confidence, since their exports are often meant for external consumers)
• Unused dependencies - packages in package.json never imported and never referenced in an npm script

Known limitations

• Config-file usage isn't detected. A devDependency like typescript or eslint is often used only through a config file (tsconfig.json, eslint.config.js) rather than an import or an npm script. This tool doesn't check for that yet, so those packages will show up at ~50% confidence with a note to verify manually - that's an honest "not sure," not a false positive.
• No dynamic import detection. Files/dependencies only loaded via dynamic import() calls, string-based require(), or bundler-specific config aren't tracked.
• Single-project scans only. No monorepo/workspace awareness yet - point it at one tsconfig.json at a time.
• Framework convention files aren't recognized. Files that a framework discovers by location or naming convention rather than by import - e.g. Next.js App Router's page.tsx, layout.tsx, route.ts's GET/POST exports, generateStaticParams - will be flagged as unused even though the framework uses them implicitly. This applies to any framework with similar conventions (Nuxt, SvelteKit, Remix, etc.), not just Next.js. Review flagged files in framework-specific directories (like app/) with extra care.

License

ISC