Known Issues

This page contains a list of known issues you might run into when using Knip.

The CJS build of Vite’s Node API is deprecated

The CJS build of Vite's Node API is deprecated. See https://vitejs.dev/guide/troubleshooting.html#vite-cjs-node-api-deprecated for more details.

Only a warning, but can be suppressed by setting the VITE_CJS_IGNORE_WARNING environment variable:

VITE_CJS_IGNORE_WARNING=true knip

Config files using ESM features

Knip may fail when a plugin tries to load a TypeScript configuration file (e.g. vite.config.ts) with an error message like one of these:

SyntaxError: Cannot use 'import.meta' outside a module
...
SyntaxError: await is only valid in async functions and the top level bodies of modules
...
SyntaxError: missing ) after argument list
...
SyntaxError: Unexpected identifier 'Promise'
...
TypeError: Reflect.metadata is not a function
...
Error [ERR_PACKAGE_PATH_NOT_EXPORTED]: No "exports" main defined in [...]/node_modules/estree-walker/package.json

This is caused by Knip using jiti to load and execute TypeScript configuration files that contains ESM syntax (such as top-level await), which may incorrectly consider it as CommonJS (instead of not transforming ESM).

Potential workarounds:

Turn the configuration file from TS into JS (e.g. vitest.config.ts → vitest.config.js). Knip loads modules directly using native import() calls.
Use Bun with knip-bun.
Disable the plugin (not recommended, try the other options first).

Use knip --debug in a monorepo to help locate where the error is coming from.

Issues like #72 and #194 are hopefully fixed in jiti v2. By the way, nothing but love for jiti (it’s awesome).

GitHub Issue #565

Path aliases in config files

Loading the configuration file (e.g. cypress.config.ts) for one of Knip’s plugins may give an error:

Analyzing workspace ....
Error loading .../cypress.config.ts
Reason: Cannot find module '@alias/name'
Require stack:
- .../cypress.config.ts

Some tools (such as Cypress and Jest) support using TypeScript path aliases in the configuration file. Unfortunately jiti does not seem to support this.

Potential workarounds:

Rewrite the import the configuration to a relative import.
Use Bun with knip-bun.
Disable the plugin (not recommended, try the other options first).

False positives with external libs

Knip can report false positives when exports are consumed by external libraries.

Please see external libs.

Definitely Typed packages in `dependencies`

Knip is strict in the divide between dependencies and devDependencies. Some projects are published with one or more DT packages bundled. Knip does not make exceptions for such DT packages (@types/*) listed in dependencies.

Extensionless imports

Knip does not support extensionless imports for non-standard extensions, such as for .vue or .svg files. Bundlers like Webpack may support this, but Knip does not. Examples:

import Component from './Component'; // → Does not resolve to ./Component.vue
import ArrowIcon from '../icons/Arrow'; // → Does not resolve to ../icons/Arrow.svg

The recommendation is to add the extension when importing such files, similar to how standard ES Modules work.