Improve the `Could not find root package.json` error with hints to workarounds

[Delapouite]

Clear and concise description of the problem

Hi

In some of my monorepo projects, I was facing Could not find root package.json error while trying to run node-modules-inspector right at the beginning.

At first I was surprised because npm query :root did find the root package.

After some investigation of the source code, it turns out there's some filtering happening :

  return json.filter((pkg): pkg is NpmPackageNode => {
    return (
      pkg
      && typeof pkg === 'object'
      && typeof pkg._id === 'string'
      && typeof pkg.name === 'string'
      && typeof pkg.version === 'string'
    )
  })

So to be found, the root package.json needs both a name and version fields. In my case it was missing the later (sub-workspaces are versioned independently).

Suggested solution

When the Could not find root package.json is raised, maybe add a small explanation to help the user debug the situation more easily.
For example something like "Ensure that the root package.json has a name and a version"

Thanks

Alternative

No response

Additional context

No response

Validations

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[astik]

A bit further on this topic, i see that package without version in package.json are not reported at all.
As soon as i add "version": "0.0.0" to them, they are reported.

My monorepo does not contain version as no libraries are generated and don't need versioning. Even the top applications that are deployed don't need NPM versioning in our case.

Could be nice:

• either to add "limitation" in documentation
• or to analyse package.json even if they don't have a version property.

[astik]

Addition:
Even though packages are reported, they are not part of the graph, they are considered top level 😢

I would have expected this tool to report as graph monorepo internal dependencies. Like so, i would be able to filter on my company namespace and see all monorepo dependencies only without external NPM dependencies.

Here is an example:

• main package for application:

  "name": "@my-company-ns/app",
  "description": "My Client Application",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  ...
  "dependencies": {
    ...
    "@my-company-ns/api": "*",
    "@my-company-ns/components": "*",
    "@my-company-ns/config": "*",
    "@my-company-ns/constants": "*",
    ...
  }

I would expect those 4 dependencies to pop under the top level one, even though they dont have an explicit version in their package.json(workspace resolution).

[connorshea]

Agreed, this would be a good improvement. I would've gotten stuck if not for this issue.