# sindresorhus/update-notifier

Update notifications for your CLI app

Repository: https://github.com/sindresorhus/update-notifier
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/update-notifier
Language: JavaScript
License: BSD-2-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: update-notifier, update-chec, updater, notifications, command-line-utility, node-module, npm-package
Last push: 2026-07-25T12:05:02+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 65/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 94, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5016, "days_push": 39, "days_rel": 723, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1808, forks 161 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:39.297513+00:00)

## What it is
A Node.js library that lets CLI applications non-intrusively notify users when a newer version of the package is available. It asynchronously checks npm in a background child process and caches results to avoid impacting startup performance.

## Use cases
- notify CLI users when a new version is available
- check npm registry for package updates in the background
- show non-intrusive update prompts in a command-line tool
- customize update check interval and notification message
- detect update type (major, minor, patch) for a package

## When to choose
- you maintain an npm-distributed CLI app and want users to know about updates
- you need a lightweight, zero-impact update check that runs asynchronously
- you want configurable check intervals and custom notification messages

## When to avoid
- your software is not distributed via npm
- you need forced auto-updates rather than passive notifications
- you are building a GUI or web application rather than a CLI tool

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: developer-tools, cli, alerting
- domain: developer-tools, backend
- platform: cross-platform
- tags: update-notifier, npm, version-checking, cli-ux, command-line, nodejs

## Member repositories
- sindresorhus/update-notifier (main) score 65

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:39.297513+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:21:23.896871+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/sindresorhus/update-notifier (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:39.297513+00:00, sha a543a836d52a)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.