## 🚨 [Critical/Housekeeping] `node_modules/` directory is committed to the repository — inflates clone size by hundreds of MB and breaks standard npm workflow for all 11 forks

[prince-pokharna]

Summary

The repository root contains a committed node_modules/ directory. This is one of the most critical anti-patterns in Node.js development and should never be version-controlled.

Confirmed impact:

• node_modules/ can contain hundreds to thousands of packages totalling hundreds of megabytes
• Every git clone for all 11 forks downloads this entire directory unnecessarily
• With 119 commits, multiple snapshots of node_modules/ may exist in git history, compounding the bloat
• npm install behavior is unpredictable when node_modules/ already exists from git
• Turborepo's workspace resolution may behave unexpectedly with committed node_modules

Why this likely happened:
.gitignore at the root may not be ignoring the root-level node_modules/, or the directory was force-added at some point.

Proposed Fix

Step 1 — Remove from tracking:

git rm -r --cached node_modules/

Step 2 — Verify .gitignore includes:
node_modules/
**/node_modules/
.turbo/

Step 3 — Clean git history (important — the large binary files remain in history even after removal):

# Using git-filter-repo (recommended):
git filter-repo --path node_modules/ --invert-paths

Step 4 — Update README to note that contributors must run npm install after cloning.

Acceptance Criteria

• node_modules/ removed from git tracking via git rm --cached
• .gitignore updated to prevent re-committing at root and all workspace levels
• Repository size measurably reduced after removal
• npm install from root works correctly after removal

Labels: housekeeping, priority: critical, good first issue

[prince-pokharna]

Hey @AnirbansarkarS ,
Please assign it to me under GSSoC 2026.
/assign /claim /claim-assignment