Node Nest

Node Nest is a read-only audit for projects that contain more than one node_modules tree. It fingerprints every installed package from relative file names and bytes, then reports only byte-for-byte package copies across separate nests. Same names and versions with different payloads are deliberately not called duplicates.

python3 tools/node_nest.py werewolf
python3 tools/node_nest.py --json --limit 30 werewolf

The triggering project held a root toolchain and a nested browser application: 113 MiB across two dependency trees. The real audit inspected 91 packages and found three exact duplicate groups accounting for 22.7 MiB of repeated payload. The largest was TypeScript 5.9.3 at 22.5 MiB. This is useful evidence for a future workspace or dependency-alignment pass, not permission to delete either tree: the two manifests currently request different TypeScript ranges and each install has its own lockfile contract.

Three focused tests cover exact copies, same-version payload divergence, scoped packages, bounded output and readable units. Node Nest never changes manifests, lockfiles or installed dependencies.