DEV Community

Cover image for NPM SmartUpgrade
Anna
Anna

Posted on

NPM SmartUpgrade

#devchallenge #githubchallenge #cli #githubcopilot

GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge Submission

This is a submission for the GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge

What I Built

NPM Smart Upgrade is a VS Code extension that scans a workspace for npm dependency updates and groups them by major/minor/patch. From the sidebar, you can run per‑package breaking‑change analysis, view the results in a details panel, and trigger package upgrades. If breaking changes are found, the extension can generate migration suggestions and apply diffs directly in the workspace. It also supports optional automatic patch updates and works across multiple workspace folders.

Demo

  1. Open the NPM Smart Upgrade view to see grouped updates and sign in if you want analysis.

  2. Use per‑package actions to analyze or update.

  3. Start breaking‑change analysis from a package item.

  4. Review detected breaking changes in the details panel.

  5. See at‑a‑glance BC status in the list (Yes/No).

  6. Apply upgrades and generate migration help with Update & Resolve.

My Experience with GitHub Copilot CLI

I started by writing a short PRD with requirements, then used Copilot CLI (often in Plan mode) to turn the PRD into a working feature set. It consistently surfaced good points I hadn’t thought about, which helped me avoid rework.

Copilot CLI was especially helpful for debugging: I pasted error messages and got fixes quickly, which saved a lot of time.

Overall, I spent around 4–6 hours to get the extension working. Without Copilot, it would have taken me much longer because I wasn’t very familiar with building VS Code extensions. It felt like having a pair programmer that could both implement and troubleshoot as I went.

Thanks for the challenge!

Top comments (0)