Is it possible to report unused exports in entry files in folders that are not being 'used' or 'imported' throughout the project?

[VladSez]

Hello, thanks for a wonderful library ❤️

I have a question regarding unused exports
I have a project (not a monorepo), which looks like this (simplified):

Reproduction

/src
- /module1
- - index.ts
- /module2
- - index.ts
- /module3
- - index.ts

file: src/module1/index.ts
========
// this is NOT reported by knip, because we don't import anything throughout the app from 'module1/index.ts'
export function sum(a: number, b: number) {
  return a + b;
}

// this is NOT reported by knip, because we don't import anything throughout the app from 'module1/index.ts'
export function multiply(a: number, b: number) {
  return a * b;
}

file: src/module2/index.ts
========
// this function is imported in module3/index.ts
export function subtract(a: number, b: number) {
  return a - b;
}

// this is reported by knip correctly, because we import 'subtract()' at 'module3/index.ts
export const test = 23;

file: src/module3/index.ts
=======

import { subtract } from "../module2/index.js";

// this is NOT reported by knip, because we don't import anything throughout the app from 'module3/index.ts'
export function calculate(a: number, b: number) {
  return subtract(a, b);
}

// this is NOT reported by knip, because we don't import anything throughout the app from 'module3/index.ts'
export const smth = 'smth;

knip.json

{
  "project": ["src/**/*.ts"]
}

package.json

{
  "name": "knip-test",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "type": "module",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "module1": "tsx src/module1/index.ts",
    "module2": "tsx src/module2/index.ts",
    "module3": "tsx src/module3/index.ts"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "devDependencies": {
    "knip": "2.13.0",
    "tsx": "3.12.7",
    "typescript": "5.1.3"
  }
}

if I run npx knip I get:

Unused exports (1)
test  src/module2/index.ts

Is it possible to make knip detect unused exports for module1 and module3?

I have found this in docs: https://github.com/webpro/knip/blob/main/docs/handling-issues.md#unused-exports
But still not quite clear for me, if I can do anything to report those unused exports..

Also I have found that --include-entry-exports flag have been removed in v2, maybe this is related to this problem?

[webpro]

Thanks for your detailed reporting. I'm working on #140 which is related, and I'm planning to have a fix in the coming days.

[webpro]

I've re-introduced the --include-entry-exports flag in v2.14.0-next.0.

Any chance you could try it out on your project(s)?

You can install with e.g. npm install -D knip@next

[VladSez]

@webpro thanks for the quick fix
I have tried on the above example, it works as expected now

But I have tried on another project

and I am getting prettier lint-staged and vite config files as reported
on knip: 2.13.0 I wasn't getting this

knip: 2.14.0-next.0

Unused exports (5)
default  .prettierrc.cjs       
default  knip.ts               
default  lint-staged.config.cjs
LABELS   src/cli/index.ts  ---> this is reported correctly
default  vite.config.ts

Is it expected?

[webpro]

Thanks for trying so quickly.

Yeah I was kinda afraid of such results, that's why I did a pre-release first.

It is expected, but not desired. I think I need to make a difference between regular source code entry files versus entry files added by plugins. WIP :)

[webpro]

I've released another next pre-release.

I should add that for files referenced in scripts like this:

"module1": "tsx src/module1/index.ts"

The unused exports won't be reported. Maybe these should be added to entry explicitly? E.g.:

{
  "entry": ["src/*/index.ts"],
  "project": ["src/**/*.ts"]
}

[VladSez]

@webpro thank you, I have tried the latest version and it works as you mentioned, but in my opinion this behaviour is a bit confusing

in package.json I have

{
  "scripts": {
    "start:cli": "tsx src/cli/index.ts",
    "start:server": "tsx src/server/index.ts"
  }
}

and in knip:

{
  "entry": ["src/*/index.ts"],
  "project": ["src/**/*.ts"]
}

and with this setup src/cli/index.ts and src/server/index.ts are not reported, if I remove these scripts from package.json everything is reported correctly.

But, I think, it's useful to keep thoose scripts in package.json, unfortunately this breaks knip --include-entry-exports flag reporting

Is there any solution here?

[webpro]

🚀 This issue has been resolved in v2.14.0. See Release 2.14.0 for release notes.

[webpro]

Gave it a little more thought and I think it makes sense to include script files when using the --include-entry-exports flag.

By the way, I didn't mean to say you should include scripts in both entry config and npm scripts. Only in one place should be enough indeed.

[VladSez]

@webpro thanks for your effort, everything works now 🎉