Knip for Editors & Agents

Published: 2025-12-17

Three years in, Knip has founds its place in over 10.000 projects and is downloaded over 18M times/month. A long period of steady growth in usage and stability allows Knip to become more accessible to more people. That’s why I’m excited and proud to introduce the brand new VS Code Extension and MCP Server. For humans and coding agents alike, Knip will help keep your codebases tidy.

Don’t forget… Knip it before you ship it!

VS Code Extension

This one is for you.

The usual suspects like red squiggles for unused exports are there. What really moves the needle for DX with Knip’s module graph is navigation. A completely unique way to view & fly through codebases for developers who care. Connect the dots during development and refactors, while keeping things in check. We’re starting out with 3 key features:

1. Hover over Export for import & usage locations
2. Imports Tree View for direct links to implementations
3. Exports Tree View for direct links to import & usage locations

Find Knip on the VS Code Marketplace.

MCP Server

Configuring Knip has always been a major headache to many. No more. Tell your coding agent to “configure knip” and it will RTFM so you don’t have to. Using a newer model like Opus 4.5 or GPT 5.2 results in an optimized knip.json file and an uncluttered codebase.

The MCP Server is available separately and built into the VS Code Extension.

Language Server

The VS Code Extension and the MCP Server are powered by the new Language Server. It’s a custom server that builds the full module graph of your project, and provides a session with a graph explorer to request all sorts of interesting information. Queries like “where is an export imported” or “is this import part of a circular dependency” are just scratching the surface here.

Extensions for other IDEs can be built on top. See language-server/README.md

Screenshots

• Lint Findings
• Imports & Exports
• Contention
  • Circular Dependencies
  • Conflicts
  • Branching
• VS Code Extension Settings

Lint Findings

Imports & Exports

Contention

The IDE extension shows extra issues in the tree views like circular dependencies. We’re starting out with some extra novelties like conflicting and branched/diamond-shaped import chains.

Circular Dependencies

If an import is part of a circular dependency, Knip will display:

Conflicts

TypeScript shows direct conflicts when importing or re-exporting the same named export from different files. Except when the problem is more subtle and the chain spans more than one file. Knip warns:

Branching

Branched or diamond-shaped imports chains indicate unnecessary re-exports and complexity. They help to untangle large codebases and shrink or get rid of barrel files. Knip warns:

VS Code Extension Settings