Getting Started

💽 Installation

pnpm

pnpm add -D eslint-plugin-package-json

npm

npm install -D eslint-plugin-package-json

yarn

yarn add -D eslint-plugin-package-json

Requirements

• ESLint v9 or above
• Node ^22.13.0 || >=24

📖 Configs

Recommended Config

This plugin’s recommended configuration enables its rules on **/package.json files, parsing them with jsonc-eslint-parser.

eslint.config.ts

import packageJson from "eslint-plugin-package-json";
import { defineConfig } from "eslint/config";

export default defineConfig([
  // your other ESLint configurations
  packageJson.configs.recommended,
]);

If you want to override the recommended rules:

eslint.config.ts

import packageJson from "eslint-plugin-package-json";
import { defineConfig } from "eslint/config";

export default defineConfig([
  // your other ESLint configurations
  {
    extends: [packageJson.configs.recommended],
    files: ["package.json"],
    rules: {
      "package-json/require-author": "error",
    },
  },
]);

Tip

See ESLint’s Configuration Files guide for details on how to customize your rules and other config settings.

Recommended Config for Publishable Packages

Note

This config was recently made redundant and is now the same as recommended. However, we’re keeping it as its own config for now, in the event that we add new rules unique to the publishable use case.

The recommended-publishable configuration has everything in it from the standard recommended config, with some additional rules added that are geared towards packages that are intended to be published.

eslint.config.ts

import packageJson from "eslint-plugin-package-json";
import { defineConfig } from "eslint/config";

export default defineConfig([
  // your other ESLint configurations
  packageJson.configs["recommended-publishable"],
]);

Stylistic Config

The stylistic configuration sets up the parser and files similar to the recommended config, but includes rules that are more opinionated about the style of a package.json. This can be used in addition to the recommended config, or on its own.

eslint.config.ts

import packageJson from "eslint-plugin-package-json";
import { defineConfig } from "eslint/config";

export default defineConfig([
  // your other ESLint configurations
  packageJson.configs.recommended, // or packageJson.configs["recommended-publishable"]
  packageJson.configs.stylistic,
]);

⚙️ Settings

Some rules can be configured in ESLint shared settings. You can set them in settings.packageJson in an ESLint flat config.

Example:

eslint.config.ts

import packageJson from "eslint-plugin-package-json";
import { defineConfig } from "eslint/config";

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: {
    "package-json": packageJson,
  },
  rules: {
    // `description` won't be required in package.json with `"private": true`
    "package-json/require-description": "error",
  },
  settings: {
    packageJson: {
      enforceForPrivate: false,
    },
  },
});

enforceForPrivate

• Type: boolean
• Default: [see below]

When a package.json file has a "private": true field, it indicates that the package will not be published to npm (or another online registry). Some fields that are nice to have in public packages become less relevant when a package is private. This option determines whether require-* rules, if used, should enforce the presence of the corresponding property in package.json files that have "private": true.

By default, this is:

• false for require-name and require-version.
• true for every other require-* rule.

By specifying this setting as true or false, it will override the defaults and apply the setting for ALL rules. In that case, either all require-* rules will be applied to private packages or no require-* rules will be applied to private packages. Even then, you can override the setting again at the rule level, by using the rule’s ignorePrivate option, which will take precedence over this global setting.