You'd know not to merge it and can wait for or later when it's fixed.īy pinning dependencies you know exactly what you're running and you know exactly what failed. Your main branch would not be broken because it's pinned to - instead you'd just have a Pull Request for upgrading to which would fail. You would need to manually check and work out which dependency caused the failure ( foobar may not have been the only dependency to have "automatically" upgraded since the last time your tests passed) and then you would need to pin the dependency yourself to stop npm installing 1.2.0.Ĭonsider the same situation if instead you were pinning dependency versions. If you were using default caret SemVer ranges, then your main branch is now "broken" because its package.json says that any version 1.x above 1.1.0 is acceptable, and npm will choose the latest ( 1.2.0). Let's say that a "faulty" version 1.2.0 of foobar is released and it breaks one of your tests. We'll cover lock files later, don't worry. This benefits when upgrading versions as well as when rolling back in case of problems. When you have a pinned version of each dependency in your package.json, you know exactly which version of each dependency is installed at any time. ![]() You mainly pin versions for certainty, and visibility. there might be a space of 30 minutes where your package specifies foobar 1.1.0 and the other one specifies 1.1.1 and your joint downstream users end up with a duplicate. In this case, it is usually a bad idea to pin all your dependencies because it will introduce an unnecessarily narrow range (one release!) and cause most users of your package to bloat their node_modules with duplicates.įor example, you might have pinned foobar to version 1.1.0 and another author pinned his/her foobar dependency to 1.2.2.Īny user of both your packages will end up with npm trying to install two separate versions of foobar, which might not even work.Įven if both projects use a service like Renovate to keep their pinned dependencies up to date with the very latest versions, it's still not a good idea - there will always be times when one package has updated/released before the other one and they will be out of sync.Į.g. Ranges for Libraries ¶Ī second reason for using ranges applies to "libraries" that are published as npm packages with the intention that they are used/ require()'d by other packages. This is the reality of most open source packages. So for example release 1.2.0 may include one new feature and one fix, so if you stick with 1.1.0 then you will miss out on the fix as there will never be a 1.1.1 once 1.2.0 is already released. The reality is that for most projects, fixes are not "backported" to previous minor releases, and minor releases themselves may include fixes. This is true in theory but not in practice. "~1.1.0") to get bug fixes, rather than caret ranges (e.g. If you're familiar with the theory of SemVer, you might think that you only need to use tilde ranges (e.g. Why use ranges? ¶įor projects of any type, the main reason to use ranges is so that you can "automatically" get updated releases - which may even include security fixes.īy "automatically", we mean that any time you run npm install you will get the very latest version matching your SemVer - assuming you're not using a lock file, that is. If instead you "pin" your dependencies rather than use ranges, it means you use exact entries like "foobar": "1.1.0" which means "use only foobar version 1.1.0 and no other". This narrows the range to only patch updates to the 1.1 range. The project will automatically use 1.1.1 if it's released, or 1.2.0, or 1.2.1, etc - meaning you will get not only patch updates but also feature (minor) releases too.Īnother alternative is ranges like "foobar": "~1.1.0" which means "any foobar version greater than or equal to 1.1.0 but less than 1.2". Verbosely, this means "any foobar version greater than or equal to 1.1.0 but less than 2". Historically, projects use SemVer ranges in their package.json.įor instance, if you run npm install foobar you will see an entry like "foobar": "^1.1.0" added to your package.json. To ensure we're all talking about the same thing, it's important to define exactly what we mean by dependency "pinning". If you do not want to read the in-depth discussion, and just want our recommendations, skip ahead to the "So what's best?" section. The answer is "It's your choice", but we can certainly make some generalisations/recommendations to help you. Once you start using a tool/service like Renovate, probably the biggest decision you need to make is whether to "pin" your dependencies instead of using SemVer ranges. ![]() Should you Pin your JavaScript Dependencies? ¶ Reducing the "noise" of dependency updates Should you Pin your Javascript Dependencies?ĭownside of pinned dependencies - upgrade "noise"
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