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The design space of lockfiles across package managers
Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada.
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Computer Science, Software and Computer systems, SCS.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0293-2592
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Theoretical Computer Science.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3505-3383
Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada.
2026 (English)In: Empirical Software Engineering, ISSN 1382-3256, E-ISSN 1573-7616, Vol. 31, no 3, article id 63Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Software developers reuse third-party packages that are hosted in package registries. At build time, a package manager resolves and fetches the direct and indirect dependencies of a project. Most package managers also generate a lockfile, which records the exact set of resolved dependency versions. Lockfiles are used to reduce build times; to verify the integrity of resolved packages; and to support build reproducibility across environments and time. Despite these beneficial features, developers often struggle with their maintenance, usage, and interpretation. In this study, we unveil the major challenges related to lockfiles, such that future researchers and engineers can address them. We perform the first comprehensive study of lockfiles across seven popular package managers, npm, pnpm, Cargo, Poetry, Pipenv, Gradle, and Go. First, we highlight the wide variety of design decisions that package managers make, regarding the generation process as well as the content of lockfiles. Next, we conduct a qualitative analysis based on semi-structured interviews with 15 developers. We capture first-hand insights about the benefits that developers perceive in lockfiles, as well as the challenges they face to manage these files. Following these observations, we make five recommendations to further improve lockfiles, for a better developer experience.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer Nature , 2026. Vol. 31, no 3, article id 63
National Category
Software Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-376511DOI: 10.1007/s10664-025-10789-wISI: 001666653400001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105028279123OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-376511DiVA, id: diva2:2039975
Note

QC 20260219

Available from: 2026-02-19 Created: 2026-02-19 Last updated: 2026-02-19Bibliographically approved

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Tiwari, DeepikaMonperrus, Martin

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