The typical use for dependency-cruiser is on the command line. However, you might want to use it programmatically. For this dependency-cruiser has an an API. While the engine behind the API and the command line interface are stable the API is under construction.
const depcruise = require('dependency-cruiser');
let dependencies = depcruise(["src"]);
This will return an object
{
dependencies: ... the dependencies
summary: {}
}
The second parameter of the depcruise function is an object influencing the way the dependencies are cruised and how they're returned. For instance to cruise the src folder, excluding all dependencies to node_modules from being followed, and having a GraphViz dot script returned, you'd do this:
const depcruise = require('dependency-cruiser');
let dependenciesInAGraphVizDotScript = depcruise(
["src"]
{
exclude : "(node_modules)",
system : ["cjs"],
outputType : "dot"
}
);
These are all the options:
{
validate : if true, will attempt to validate with the rules in ruleSet.
Default false.
ruleSet : An object containing the rules to validate against. The rules
should adhere to the [ruleset schema](../src/validate/jsonschema.json)
exclude : regular expression describing which dependencies the function
should not cruise
system : an array of module systems to use for following dependencies;
defaults to ["es6", "cjs", "amd"]
outputType : one of "json", "html", "dot", "csv", "err" or "vis". When left
out the function will return a javascript object as dependencies
prefix : a string to insert before links (in dot/ svg output) so with
cruising local dependencies it is possible to point to sources
elsewhere (e.g. in an online repository)
}
{
dependencies : when outputType is defined: a string containing the dependencies
in the format specified in outputType
In all other cases: a javascript with the dependencies
summary : a summary of the violations found in the dependencies:
{
violations: each violation;
from: the resolved 'from'
to: the resolved 'to'
rule: the violated rule, which consists of a
name: the (short) name of the rule
severity: the severity of the violation (error, warn or info)
error : the number of errors,
warn : the number of warnings,
info : the number of informational messages,
optionsUsed: the options used to generate the dependency graph - the
same ones as mentioned under _options_ above.
}
}