> plenty of projects are just "plumbing" and the only thing you know is the name of the dependencies you have in your dependency list.
Maybe in the web world. .Net/Java/C/C++/etc projects have a well understood dependency chain, most of the time. Mostly because there is an actual stdlib and having dependencies upon dependencies upon dependencies is very rare. Projects I've worked on with over 150 dependencies (which is an awful lot for an Android project as it was) had a dependency tree that wasn't that deep (5 at most), and all of that was on standard, well known modules (androidx, etc.)
The shitshow that is JS dependency management is a self-inflincted wound. Knowing your dependency tree _is part of your job_ as a software engineer.
Maybe in the web world. .Net/Java/C/C++/etc projects have a well understood dependency chain, most of the time. Mostly because there is an actual stdlib and having dependencies upon dependencies upon dependencies is very rare. Projects I've worked on with over 150 dependencies (which is an awful lot for an Android project as it was) had a dependency tree that wasn't that deep (5 at most), and all of that was on standard, well known modules (androidx, etc.)
The shitshow that is JS dependency management is a self-inflincted wound. Knowing your dependency tree _is part of your job_ as a software engineer.