Known Issues

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

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. Examples of issues when Knip loads configuration files:

• Missing environment variable
• Relative path (e.g. which is sometimes not resolved from correct directory, try import.meta.dirname or __dirname)

As a last resort, the plugin can be disabled.

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 disable the Nx Daemon:

NX_DAEMON=false knip