Awesome Dependency Upgrade

Dependency Upgrade

Execute dependency upgrades so that each step is verified and each batch is revertable. The failure mode this skill exists to prevent: a bulk bump to latest, a green-looking build, and a runtime break three days later that git bisect can't isolate because fifteen packages moved in one commit.

When to Activate

• "Upgrade/update dependencies", "bump X to v9", "fix npm audit", a bot PR needs handling.
• An awesome-dependency-audit report produced findings to remediate — this skill is its acting half.

Do not activate to decide whether a package is risky (the audit owns detection) or to add a new dependency (ask-first, outside both skills).

Work Process

1. Inventory before touching — for each candidate: current resolved version (lockfile, not manifest), target version, direct or transitive, and why it's moving (security fix, feature need, hygiene). No reason → it waits; churn is not hygiene.
2. Classify by risk and batch accordingly — lockfile-only refreshes and patch/minor bumps of well-locked packages batch together; every major goes alone, one at a time. Security-driven bumps jump the queue but follow the same verification.
3. One upgrade concern per commit — never mix an upgrade with feature work or refactoring; the commit message names what moved and why. A batch is one revertable unit: if it breaks, one git revert restores the world.
4. Majors are changelog-driven, not semver-trusted — read the release notes and migration guide for every major: the breaking-changes list is the work plan, not a formality. Run the project's codemod where one is offered before hand-editing. Semver is a promise, not a guarantee — treat "minor" bumps of frameworks and build tooling with major-grade suspicion, and check the installed version's own docs for renamed APIs rather than trusting memory.
5. Verify between batches, not at the end — after each batch: install from lockfile, typecheck/build, full test suite, and read the output (exit codes, not vibes). A failure identifies its batch immediately; that is the entire point of batching.
6. Review the lockfile diff as code — every added or changed entry accounted for by the manifest change that caused it; a surprise new package, a changed registry URL, or a new install script in the diff is a stop-and-investigate, not a shrug (awesome-dependency-audit Track A/B rules apply to the diff).
7. Unfixed transitive CVE — when no upstream fix exists: pin with overrides/resolutions/constraints, comment the CVE id and the removal condition ("remove when send ≥ 0.19 reaches express"), and record it in the report. An override without a removal condition is how temporary pins become permanent archaeology.
8. Bot PRs get the same treatment — automerge only patch-level bumps with a lockfile and a trustworthy CI suite; group bumps regenerate, never hand-merge conflicting lockfiles. A bot PR whose lockfile diff contains more than its manifest claims is declined and investigated.

Rules

• Pin build-time executors exactly — anything running at build/CI time (npx pkg@x.y.z, codegen, formatters) moves by explicit pin, never floats.
• Deprecated before deleted — an upgrade that surfaces deprecation warnings schedules their fixes now, while the migration guide is open; ignoring them stores the same work for a worse day.
• Peer-dependency conflicts are decisions — forcing resolution (--force, --legacy-peer-deps) hides an incompatibility; resolve it by choosing versions, or record the accepted mismatch and why.
• Ecosystem-agnostic — the same discipline holds for package.json/lockfile, requirements.txt/poetry.lock, go.mod, Cargo.toml, pom.xml/gradle, Gemfile.lock; only the freeze and override mechanisms change names.

Output Format

Dependency Upgrade —  — 

Upgraded:
-   →  [major|minor|patch] —  — verified: 
Pinned (no fix available):
-  —  — override with removal condition: 
Deferred:
-  — 

Batches: 
Lockfile diff: 
Remaining risk: 

Anti-patterns

| Anti-pattern | Instead | |---|---| | Bulk bump to latest in one commit | Risk-classified batches, majors alone | | Upgrade mixed into a feature branch | Its own commit/PR, named and revertable | | Trusting semver over the changelog | Release notes read for every major; codemods run | | Silencing the scanner with an unconditioned override | CVE id + removal condition, recorded in the report | | Verifying once at the end of fifteen bumps | Verification between batches — failures name their batch | | Hand-merging a conflicted lockfile | Regenerate from the manifest; lockfiles are outputs, not sources | | --legacy-peer-deps as a reflex | Resolve the conflict or record the accepted mismatch |

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: khasky
• Source: khasky/awesome-agent-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.