package.json generation / npm unused packages

Question

I'm introducing unit testing in my project and for this, I need to make myself a package.json file.

First question is, which unit testing suite are you using? I'm looking forward mocha which seem to be pretty much standard for Node.js projects.

Second question is: Is there any magical way of generating a package.json file? (for dependencies and versions)

Third question is: I've been testing a lot of npm packages while developing my project and now I'm stuck with a lot of probably unused packages. Is there any way to tell which one are useless? (I saw npm list installed which is useful though)

Answer 1

1. I am using Mocha.

2. npm init

3. npm ls will list "extraneous" next to ones that are not in your package.json. But, it sounds like you don't have a package.json yet.

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Basically, your workflow is very backward. Here is how it is intended to work:

1. Start a new project with npm init. It has no dependencies.
2. Oh, I want to start using a package, say express? Add it to package.json under dependencies, then run npm install.
3. Oh, I want to start using a package for development, say mocha? Add it to package.json under devDependencies, then run npm install.

You seem to have some existing code with manually-installed packages (via npm install <packageName>), which is a mess. I suggest starting over and following the above workflow.