BunKill 🚀 - npkill alternative

Ultra-fast node_modules cleanup tool powered by Bun.js

Faster than npkill with advanced interactive features and accurate size reporting

BunKill scans large directory trees, calculates folder sizes, and lets you delete selected node_modules folders from an interactive terminal UI or in batch mode.

Features

• fast scanning for node_modules in large trees
• concurrent size calculation with live progress
• interactive cleanup UI with keyboard selection
• interactive search after results load
• multiple sort modes
  • largest first
  • newest first
  • oldest first
  • name
  • path
• developer-friendly badges in the UI
  • package manager
  • git branch / dirty state
  • staged changes
  • recently touched project marker
• dry-run and --delete-all modes
• update checks with short timeout and clear status
• JS/Bun implementation only

Requirements

• Bun is required at runtime
• macOS is the only platform tested so far

Install Bun if needed:

curl -fsSL https://bun.sh/install | bash

Install

npm install -g bunkill

or

bun install -g bunkill

Usage

# interactive scan in current directory
bunkill

# scan a specific directory
bunkill --dir ~/Projects

# preview only
bunkill --dir ~/Projects --dry-run

# delete everything found without interactive selection
bunkill --dir ~/Projects --delete-all

# limit traversal depth
bunkill --dir ~/Projects --depth 3

# check for updates manually
bunkill update --check-only

Options

• --dir <directory> scan root, defaults to current directory
• --target <name> target folder name, defaults to node_modules
• --exclude <patterns...> skip paths containing these substrings
• --exclude-hidden skip hidden directories
• --hide-errors suppress permission errors
• --full-scan scan from the home directory
• --depth <number> max traversal depth, default 10
• --dry-run show results without deleting
• --delete-all delete all discovered targets without interactive selection

Interactive keys

• ↑ / ↓ move
• space select current item
• / search loaded results
• c clear search
• a select or clear all visible results
• s cycle sort order
• d toggle details
• o open directory
• enter delete selected
• q quit

Search filters the already loaded list, so you can quickly narrow large result sets without rescanning.

Platform status

• macOS: tested
• Linux: not tested yet
• Windows: not tested yet

Linux and Windows may work, but they have not been validated in this repo yet.

Contributions for Linux and Windows testing or fixes are welcome.

Performance

Recent real scan on --dir /Users/himanshum:

• completed in about 24.45s
• found 265 node_modules directories

More benchmark notes:

• BENCHMARK.md
• benchmark/installed-vs-local-benchmark.ts
• benchmark/three-way-benchmark.ts

Development

bun install
bun run check
bun run src/cli.ts --dir ~/Projects --dry-run

Project files

• src/cli.ts CLI entry point
• src/scanner.ts scan and delete engine
• src/config.ts shared runtime and scan config
• src/types.ts shared types
• benchmark/ benchmark scripts

Contributing

Contributions are welcome.

Especially useful:

• Linux testing
• Windows testing
• terminal UI improvements
• scan performance improvements
• bug reports with reproducible directories or logs

If you are working on bunkill or want to contribute around that ecosystem, contributors can get a free on-chain URL from urls.bid dm me on x.

Notes

• BunKill uses Bun at runtime via #!/usr/bin/env bun
• the scanner is JS/Bun-only now
• the old Zig/native experiment was removed
• the name "BunKill" is a playful nod to "npkill" and reflects the Bun.js foundation of the tool