# 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 **29 single-root stacks compared. 14 match exactly, 23 within two packages.** That is after correcting one definitional gap that the first run exposed. ## What the first run caught 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. 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 `true` 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. | 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 **Not safe to publish as-is:** - 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.