Monorepo Dependency Checker

Analyze monorepo dependency graphs for version conflicts, circular imports, unnecessary coupling, and package boundary violations. Works with Nx, Turborepo, Lerna, pnpm workspaces, and npm workspaces.

Usage

"Check my monorepo for dependency issues"
"Find circular dependencies between packages"
"Audit version consistency across workspaces"
"Analyze package boundaries in my monorepo"

How It Works

1. Workspace Discovery

# Detect monorepo tool
cat nx.json 2>/dev/null && echo "Nx workspace"
cat turbo.json 2>/dev/null && echo "Turborepo"
cat lerna.json 2>/dev/null && echo "Lerna"
cat pnpm-workspace.yaml 2>/dev/null && echo "pnpm workspace"

# List all packages
find . -name "package.json" -not -path "*/node_modules/*" -maxdepth 3

2. Dependency Graph

Build the internal dependency graph:

Which packages depend on which
Direct vs transitive dependencies
Shared dependencies across packages
External dependency versions

3. Issue Detection

Circular dependencies:

Package A → B → C → A (cycle)
Impact: build ordering issues, bundle size, testing complexity
Fix: extract shared code into new package or restructure

Version conflicts:

Different versions of same external dep across packages
Peer dependency mismatches
Lockfile inconsistencies

Unnecessary coupling:

Packages importing from other packages' internals
Shared state between packages that should be independent
Test utilities leaking into production bundles

Boundary violations:

UI packages importing from backend packages
Feature packages depending on other features (should go through shared)
Missing package.json exports field

4. Architecture Recommendations

Layered architecture: shared → domain → feature → app
Proper barrel exports (index.ts) in each package
Build order optimization
Affected/changed package detection for CI
Package extraction candidates (frequently co-changed files)

Output

## Monorepo Dependency Analysis

**Tool:** Turborepo | **Packages:** 12 | **Workspace:** pnpm

### Dependency Graph

app-web → ui, api-client, config, types app-mobile → ui, api-client, config, types api-server → database, config, types, utils ui → types, config api-client → types database → types, config


### 🔴 Circular Dependencies (1)
- utils → database → utils
  utils/logger imports database/connection for query logging
  → Extract logging config to `config` package

### 🟡 Version Conflicts (3)
| Package | Versions | Location |
|---------|----------|----------|
| react | 18.2, 18.3 | app-web vs ui |
| zod | 3.22, 3.23 | api-server vs types |
| typescript | 5.3, 5.4, 5.5 | various |

### 📊 Package Health
| Package | Internal Deps | External Deps | Build Order | Issues |
|---------|--------------|---------------|-------------|--------|
| types | 0 | 1 | 1 | ✅ |
| config | 1 | 3 | 2 | ✅ |
| utils | 2 | 5 | 3 | 🔴 circular |
| ui | 2 | 12 | 4 | 🟡 version |
| database | 2 | 4 | 3 | 🔴 circular |

### ✅ Good Practices
- Clean layered architecture (types → config → domain → app)
- Proper exports field in all package.json files
- Shared tsconfig.base.json with package-level extends
- Turborepo pipeline configured for incremental builds