| # Validation against deps.dev — 2026-08-19 |
|
|
| Our resolver checked against **Google's Open Source Insights** (`api.deps.dev`), |
| which publishes already-resolved dependency graphs for npm, PyPI and Maven. |
| Script: [validate-depsdev.mjs](validate-depsdev.mjs). Raw output: |
| [validation.json](validation.json). |
|
|
| The point was never to agree. It was to find out *where* we disagree and why, |
| before any of these numbers goes into a post. |
|
|
| ## Headline |
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|
| **29 single-root stacks compared. 14 match exactly, 23 within two packages.** |
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|
| That is after correcting one definitional gap that the first run exposed. |
|
|
| ## What the first run caught |
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|
| The raw comparison showed our counts running **+1 higher almost everywhere**: |
| vue 23 vs 22, svelte 20 vs 19, webpack 68 vs 67, axios 30 vs 29, django 3 vs 2, |
| pytest 5 vs 4, jackson 3 vs 2, junit5 9 vs 8, okhttp 5 vs 4, kafka 5 vs 4. |
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|
| Ten stacks off by exactly one is not noise, it is a definition. **We count the |
| root package as a node in the tree; deps.dev reports the graph without SELF.** |
| Neither is wrong, but a number is meaningless until you say which one you meant. |
| The comparison now subtracts the roots, and `validation.json` keeps `rawDelta` |
| beside `delta` so the gap stays visible instead of being tidied away. |
|
|
| Worth stating plainly: **that +1 is in every package count published in |
| [RESULTS.md](RESULTS.md) and in the repo README.** "express resolves to 71 |
| packages" means 70 dependencies plus express itself. |
|
|
| ## The outliers, and what each one is |
|
|
| | stack | ours | deps.dev | diff | explanation | |
| |---|---|---|---|---| |
| | log4j-core | 2 | 14 | **-13** | log4j-core's POM marks **15 dependencies optional**. We skip optional; deps.dev includes them. Verified by counting `<optional>true</optional>` in the POM. | |
| | netty-all | 143 | 0 | **+142** | Their default version reports an empty graph while the POM we read lists 338 dependency entries with zero optional flags. **Unexplained. Do not use netty in any published claim until this is understood.** | |
| | jest | 259 | 323 | -64 | They find more, consistent with including optional and platform-specific edges we drop. | |
| | eslint | 86 | 68 | +18 | We find more. Not yet explained. | |
| | httpx | 7 | 1 | +5 | PyPI extras: httpx's core deps are declared in a way we follow and they do not. | |
| | vertx-web | 33 | 24 | +8 | Maven optional/provided boundary again, in the other direction. | |
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| Everything else lands within two. |
|
|
| ## What this does and does not license |
|
|
| **Safe to publish**, because the counts agree with an independent resolver on |
| 23 of 29 stacks and the disagreements are named: |
|
|
| - the drift finding (same manifest, resolved month by month) |
| - the age-by-depth gradient |
| - the publisher-account counts, which deps.dev does not compute at all |
| - the cross-ecosystem comparison, with the caveat below |
|
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| **Not safe to publish as-is:** |
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|
| - any claim resting on **netty**, until the empty graph is explained |
| - any exact package count presented without saying whether the root is included |
| - the log4j and eslint rows, until the optional-dependency boundary is stated in |
| the same sentence as the number |
|
|
| ## The uncomfortable part |
|
|
| deps.dev already publishes resolved dependency graphs for six ecosystems. So |
| "nobody has counted how many packages express pulls in" is **false**, and no post |
| from this study should imply it. What deps.dev does not publish is the thing this |
| study is actually about: **the same manifest resolved as of past dates**, and the |
| count of human accounts able to publish into a tree. Those stay ours. |
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|
