Wire-up fragmented codes and files from various sources with a single command.

Documentation | Getting Started | Examples

What is loose dependency manager?

Loose Dependency Manager (ldm) is a tool that helps you manage dependencies from various sources in a single file.

You can think of it as a sophisticated form of scp command that can be configured with a single specification file (ldm.yaml) and that supports versioning (if the remote source supports it) and locking mechanism.

Currently, it supports the following sources:

Before installing ldm, you need to have Node.js installed.

npm install -g loose-dependency-manager

You write a dependency specification file named ldm.yaml.

version: "1"

dependencies:
  primitive.ts:
    uri: "@ts-essentials/ts-essentials:///lib/primitive/index.ts"
    version: latest
    destination: src/types/primitive.ts
  camel-case:
    uri: "@ts-essentials/ts-essentials:///lib/camel-case"
    version: latest
    destination: src/types/camel-case
  jquery:
    uri: jquery://default
    version: ^3.6.4
    destinations:
      - src/core.min.js
      - public/js/core.min.js
  reset.css:
    uri: https://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/reset200802.css
    destination: public/css/reset.css
  pico.css:
    uri: "@picocss/pico:///css/pico.min.css"
    version: ^2.0.0
    destination: public/css/pico.min.css

sources:
  "@ts-essentials/ts-essentials":
    provider: github
    uri: ts-essentials/ts-essentials
    auth:
      token: ${GITHUB_TOKEN}
  jquery:
    provider: jsdelivr:npm
    uri: jquery
  "@picocss/pico":
    provider: jsdelivr:npm
    uri: "@picocss/pico"

config:
  envFile: .env
  deleteFilesOnRemove: true

For better editing experience, YAML validation is supported thanks to JSON schema and YAML VSCode Extension (by RedHat).

To enable YAML validation,

• Install YAML VSCode Extension (by RedHat)
• Add the following configuration to your .vscode/settings.json file.

  {
    "yaml.schemas": {
      "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ldm-org/ldm/refs/heads/master/schema.json": "**/ldm.yaml"
    }
  }

Then in terminal, run the following command.

ldm install

This will produce the following file sturcture, assuming that ldm.yaml is the only file in the directory.

|- ldm.yaml
|- ldm-lock.yaml
|--- src/
|----- core.min.js
|----- types/
|------- primitive.ts
|------- camel-case/
|--------- index.ts
|--------- README.md
|--- public/
|----- css/
|------- reset.css
|------- pico.min.css
|----- js/
|------- core.min.js

The example above can be summarized as following diagram.

Documentation is not written yet. I'll try my best to write it as soon as possible.

You can find examples at e2e test scenarios.

Compare given and expected directory in each scenario to see what the execution of scenario.ts#scenario.command will produce.

• install
• upgrade

See Contributing Guide

MIT License © 2025-Present Joseph Hwang