decomment

📦 decomment

decomment is a CLI tool to safely remove comments from JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, TSX, and Vue files.

It performs AST-based comment removal to ensure code behavior is never changed. The tool is designed for production codebases, CI pipelines, and teams that care about safety, auditability, and reversibility.

Remove comments — and nothing else.

---

Features

• AST-based removal of single-line (//) and block (/* */) comments
• Preserves comments with specified prefixes (e.g. eslint-, @license)
• Supports JavaScript, MJS, JSX, TSX, and Vue (script section)
• Glob patterns for batch processing
• Optional configuration via decomment.config.js
• Dry-run mode to preview changes
• Statistics output (removed / kept comments)
• Automatic backup with full rollback support
• Cross-platform (Windows / macOS / Linux)

---

Installation

Global (recommended)

npm install -g @tomatobybike/decomment

or

yarn global add @tomatobybike/decomment --ignore-engines

Yarn v1 global install is not recommended due to legacy dependency constraints.

Local development

yarn add @tomatobybike/decomment

---

Usage

# Remove comments
decomment [options] [files/globs]

# Restore files from backups
decomment restore

# Remove all backup files
decomment clean

If no files or globs are provided, decomment scans the current directory by default.

---

Options

Option	Description
--dry-run	Preview changes without writing files
--keep	Comma-separated comment prefixes to preserve
--stats	Show number of comments removed and kept
-h, --help	Show help message

Default preserved prefixes:

eslint-, @license, @preserve

---

Examples

Remove comments from the current project (default behavior)

decomment

Equivalent to:

decomment "**/*.{js,mjs,jsx,tsx,vue}"

Automatically excludes:

• node_modules
• dist
• build
• .git

---

Preview changes (dry-run)

decomment "src/**/*.js" --dry-run --stats

---

Process multiple file types

decomment "src/**/*.{js,mjs,jsx,tsx,vue}" --stats

---

Preserve specific comment prefixes

decomment "src/**/*.{js,ts}" --keep eslint-,@license --stats

---

Configuration (decomment.config.js)

An optional configuration file can be placed at the project root.

export default {
  include: ["src/**/*.{js,mjs,jsx,tsx,vue}", "test/**/*.{js,mjs,jsx,tsx,vue}"],
  keep: ["eslint-", "@license", "@preserve"],
};

Config precedence

1. CLI file/glob arguments
2. config.include
3. Default glob (**/*.{js,mjs,jsx,tsx,vue})

---

Backup & Safety

For each processed file, decomment creates a single backup:

<file>.decomment.bak

• The backup is overwritten on subsequent runs
• Designed for intentional, one-shot operations
• Guarantees full reversibility

---

Restore & Cleanup

Restore files from backup

decomment restore

Restores files from their .decomment.bak backups.

---

Remove all backup files

decomment clean

Deletes all .decomment.bak files in the matched scope.

---

🔍 Comparison with Other Tools

Feature / Tool	decomment	strip-comments	comment-strip	Babel / esbuild / Terser
AST-based (safe)	✅ Yes	❌ Regex-based	❌ Regex-based	✅ Yes
Preserves semantics	✅ Guaranteed	❌ Risky	❌ Risky	❌ Not guaranteed
Removes only comments	✅ Yes	⚠️ Mostly	⚠️ Mostly	❌ No (build output)
JSX / TSX support	✅ Yes	⚠️ Partial	⚠️ Partial	✅ Yes
Vue SFC support	✅ Script section only	❌ No	❌ No	⚠️ Limited
Preserve prefixes	✅ Yes (--keep)	❌ No	❌ No	⚠️ Limited
Dry-run mode	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Statistics output	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Backup & rollback	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Glob batch processing	✅ Yes	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Limited	⚠️ Build-specific
Config file support	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
CI / pre-commit ready	✅ Designed for it	❌ No	❌ No	⚠️ Not intended
Risk of breaking code	Very Low	Medium	Medium	High
Primary use case	Production codebase hygiene	Small scripts	Small scripts	Build & minification

---

🧠 Why decomment Exists

• Regex-based tools do not understand syntax and can break code
• Build tools modify structure, formatting, and semantics
• decomment removes comments — and nothing else

If you care about safety, reviewability, and deterministic output, this tool is built for you.

---

🏆 When to Use decomment

• You want zero behavior changes
• You need auditable CI output
• You must preserve ESLint and license comments
• You work with modern JS / TS / Vue codebases
• You want safe and reversible operations

---

🚫 When NOT to Use decomment

• You just need quick text cleanup
• You already minify source code
• You do not care about accidental removals

---

npm Scripts Integration (Recommended)

decomment is designed to work naturally with npm scripts for safe and repeatable workflows.

{
  "scripts": {
    "decomment": "decomment",
    "decomment:check": "decomment --dry-run --stats",
    "decomment:fix": "decomment --stats",
    "decomment:restore": "decomment restore",
    "decomment:clean": "decomment clean"
  }
}

---

Common workflows

# Preview comment removal (no file changes)
npm run decomment:check

# Remove comments and create backups
npm run decomment:fix

# Restore all files from backups
npm run decomment:restore

# Remove all .decomment.bak files
npm run decomment:clean

🪝 Pre-commit Hook (Husky)（Optional / Advanced）

Pre-commit Hook (Husky) – Optional

You can integrate decomment into a pre-commit workflow to automatically remove comments before each commit.

⚠️ This is optional and recommended only for teams that already use Husky.

Setup

npm install -D husky
npx husky install
npx husky add .husky/pre-commit

Example .husky/pre-commit

#!/bin/sh
. "$(dirname "$0")/_/husky.sh"

echo "🧹 Running decomment..."

npx decomment "src/**/*.{js,mjs,jsx,tsx,vue}" \
  --keep eslint-,@license,@preserve \
  --stats

License

MIT License

This site is open source. Improve this page.