Known Issues

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

• Exceptions from config files
• False positives with external libs
• DefinitelyTyped packages in dependencies
• Extensionless imports

Exceptions from config files

An exception may be thrown when a Knip plugin loads a JavaScript or TypeScript configuration file such as webpack.config.js or vite.config.ts. Knip may load such files differently, in a different environment, or without certain environment variables set.

If it isn’t clear what’s throwing the exception, try another run with --debug to locate the cause of the issue with more details.

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. Jiti does support aliases, but in a different format compared to tsconfig.json#compilerOptions.paths and knip.json#paths (e.g. the target values are not arrays).

Potential workarounds:

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

Nx Daemon

In Nx projects you might encounter this error:

NX   Daemon process terminated and closed the connection

The solution is to turn off the Nx Daemon:

NX_DAEMON=false knip

False positives with external libs

Knip may 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 packages are published with one or more DT packages bundled (i.e. listed in dependencies). Knip does not make exceptions for such type packages (@types/*) and expects them in devDependencies.

Extensionless imports

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

App.vue

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

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

unplugin-icons imports

unplugin-icons uses aliased imports to import icons from icon sets as components. Knip cannot resolve these imports and will report them as unused. Use the paths configuration option to tell Knip where to find the icon types. For example:

knip.json

{
  "paths": {
    "~icons/*": ["node_modules/unplugin-icons/types/[framework].d.ts"]
  }
}

Where [framework] is the name of the framework you’re using (see available types).