Tech Feed - January 22, 2026

Articles and podcasts from the software engineering world.

Software Engineering Daily

Next-Gen JavaScript Package Management with Ruy Adorno and Darcy Clarke

Here is a comprehensive summary of the podcast episode "Next-Gen JavaScript Package Management with Ruy Adorno and Darcy Clarke":

Opening context:

• Darcy Clarke and Ruy Adorno are veterans of the JavaScript package management ecosystem, having previously worked on the npm CLI and Node.js project.
• They are now building vlt, a new package manager and registry that aims to rethink performance, security, and developer experience.

Key discussion points and insights:

• Package managers sit at the foundation of modern software development, but the older infrastructure is starting to show its limits with issues like performance bottlenecks and dependency conflicts.
• Darcy and Ruy saw these challenges firsthand while working at npm and Github, which led them to create vlt as a ground-up rethinking of package management.
• The key innovations in vlt include:
  • A serverless registry (VSR) that can act as a lightweight proxy to registries like npm, as well as provide a private self-hosted registry.
  • A focus on efficiently resolving and caching the dependency graph to reduce redundant computation on client machines.
  • A powerful query language inspired by CSS selectors, allowing for expressive package selection and operations.
  • Robust security features like default script execution blocking and real-time malware scanning.
• vlt aims to unlock new capabilities around monorepo management, cross-project configuration sharing, and advanced dependency management that traditional package managers have struggled with.

Notable technologies, tools, or concepts:

• Corepack, Node's package manager manager that attempted to centralize package manager selection
• The "diamond dependency problem" and how package managers handle conflicting transitive dependencies
• The concept of a "lock file" and its role in ensuring reproducible installations and speeding up installs
• The use of non-standard SemVer range specifiers to express dependencies

Practical implications or recommendations:

• vlt's serverless registry and efficient dependency resolution can provide significant performance improvements over traditional package managers.
• The powerful query language enables advanced package management capabilities like cross-project configuration sharing and security auditing.
• By rethinking package management from the ground up, vlt aims to address long-standing challenges in the JavaScript ecosystem around dependency management, security, and developer experience.

Overall, the discussion highlights how Darcy, Ruy, and the vlt team are taking a fresh approach to modernize the core infrastructure of JavaScript package management, with the goal of unlocking new capabilities for developers.

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