package.json doesn’t even allow comments for describing why a package is included, sigh It sort of does. NPM ignores properties it doesn't understand, so you c

package.json doesn’t even allow comments for describing why a package is included, sigh It sort of does. NPM ignores properties it doesn't understand, so you can easily add something like "dependencyReasons": { "react": "Make website go brr" } if you want to. I imagine your actual complaint is that there isn't a -m flag to add a comment when you install something, or a way to list those comments when you list the packages, or a way to enforce the user always adds a comment. It's true that those are missing, and that they'd be very useful, but you can still do it manually if it's important enough to you.