watskeburt

May 17, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Get changed files & their statuses since any git revision

:construction_worker: usage

:scroll: API

import { list, getSHA } from "watskeburt";

// print the SHA1 of the current HEAD
console.log(await getSHA());

// list all files that differ between 'main' and the current revision (including
// files not staged for commit and files not under revision control)
/** @type {import('watskeburt').IChange[]} */
const lChangedFiles = await list({ oldRevision: "main" });

// list all files that differ between 'v0.6.1' and 'v0.7.1' (by definition
// won't include files staged for commit and/ or not under revision control)
/** @type {import('watskeburt').IChange[]} */
const lChangedFiles = await list({
  oldRevision: "v0.6.1",
  newRevision: "v0.7.1",
});

// list all files that differ between 'main' and the current revision
// (including untracked files, output as JSON)
/** @type {import('watskeburt').IChange[]|string} */
const lChangedFiles = await list({
  oldRevision: "main",
  trackedOnly: false, // when set to true leaves out files not under revision control
  outputType: "json", // options: "json" and "regex"
});

The array of changes this returns looks like this:

[
  {
    name: "doc/cli.md",
    type: "modified",
  },
  {
    name: "test/thing.spec.mjs",
    type: "renamed",
    oldName: "test/old-thing.spec.mjs",
  },
  {
    name: "src/not-tracked-yet.mjs",
    type: "untracked",
  },
];

:shell: cli

Works with node >=20.12

# list all JavaScript-ish files changed since main in a regular expression
$ npx watskeburt main
^(src/cli[.]mjs|src/formatters/regex[.]mjs|src/version[.]mjs)$

This emits a regex that contains all changed files that could be source files in the JavaScript ecosystem (.js, .mjs, .ts, .tsx ...). It can be used in e.g. dependency-cruiser's --focus and --reaches filters.

The JSON output (= the array above, serialized) also contains all other extensions.

Usage: watskeburt [options] [old-revision] [new-revision]

lists files & their statuses since [old-revision] or between [old-revision] and [new-revision].

-> When you don't pass a revision old-revision defaults to the current one.

Options:
  -T, --outputType <type>  what format to emit (choices: "json", "regex", default: "regex")
  --trackedOnly            only take tracked files into account (default: false)
  -V, --version            output the version number
  -e, --extensions <list>  comma separated list of file extensions to consider
                           - pass "*" to consider all extensions
                           - currently applicable only to the "regex" reporter
                           - defaults to most popular extensions in the
                             JavaScript/ TypeScript ecosystem
  -h, --help               display help for command

Default list of extensions (cli, regex reporter only): "cjs,cjsx,coffee,csx,cts,js,json,jsx,litcoffee,ls,mjs,mts,svelte,ts,tsx,vue,vuex".

why?

I needed something robust to support caching in dependency-cruiser and to run standalone to use in combination with dependency-cruiser.

A few specialized packages like this existed, but they had fallen out of maintenance. More generic packages still were maintained, but for my use case they were overkill.

๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ฑ what does 'watskeburt' mean?

Wazzup.

watskeburt is a fast pronunciation of the Dutch "wat is er gebeurd?" (what has happened?) or "wat er is gebeurd" (what has happened).