Transitive Dependency - CI/CD Glossary Definition
A transitive dependency is a package you do not require directly but that one of your direct dependencies pulls in. If you install A and A needs B, then B is transitive.
Why they cause grief
Most of a node_modules tree is transitive. A vulnerability or breaking change deep in the graph can break your build even though you never named that package, which is why lockfiles record every transitive version.
Inspecting them
Run npm ls <pkg> or pip show to see why a package is present and which parent requested it.
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