Third-Party Packages

Rationale

Careful management of third-party packages improves security, stability, and maintainability. It reduces risk from abandoned or vulnerable dependencies.

Evaluation

• Assess packages for quality, maintenance, and security before use.
• Prefer well-documented and widely adopted libraries.
• Check for recent updates, open issues, and community adoption.
• Review package dependencies and potential security risks.
• Prefer official or recommended packages when possible.

Approval

• Follow team or project guidelines for approving new dependencies.
• Document reasons for adding new packages.
• Get team/lead approval for major or critical packages.
• Document new dependencies in README or docs/dependencies.md.

Maintenance

• Regularly update packages to patch vulnerabilities and bugs.
• Remove unused or deprecated dependencies.
• Monitor for breaking changes in major updates.
• Use automated tools (npm audit, dependabot) to monitor for vulnerabilities.
• Test application after package updates to catch breaking changes.
• Remove unused or deprecated packages to reduce security risks and maintenance overhead.