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prettier-plugin-shorten-imports

This plugin rewrites local import and export specifiers to the shortest path depth based on your tsconfig.json or jsconfig.json paths mappings. You can use it to keep imports consistent and avoid long relative paths.

Features

This section summarizes what the plugin does when Prettier formats a file.

• Supports .js, .jsx, .ts, .tsx, and .vue files.
• Rewrites only static import and export ... from specifiers.
• Compares relative paths and paths aliases and keeps the shortest depth.
• Preserves existing file extensions and normalizes to POSIX separators.
• Skips specifiers that resolve to node_modules or outside the project root.

Installation

Use your package manager to add the plugin as a development dependency.

pnpm add -D prettier-plugin-shorten-imports

Usage

You must register the plugin with Prettier before formatting your files.

prettier --plugin=prettier-plugin-shorten-imports --write "src/**/*.{ts,tsx}"

If you use a Prettier config file, add the plugin to the plugins list:

{
  "plugins": ["prettier-plugin-shorten-imports"]
}

Configuration

The plugin reads the nearest tsconfig.json or jsconfig.json from the current file location. It uses compilerOptions.paths and baseUrl from the nearest config to resolve aliases, and it merges baseUrl and paths through nested extends chains with the nearest config taking precedence.

If paths exist but baseUrl is missing, the plugin treats the config file directory as the baseUrl root. If no paths are defined, the plugin does not change specifiers.

Behavior

This section lists key rules that influence how specifiers are rewritten.

• The plugin keeps the original specifier when depth and string length tie.
• For .vue files, it only updates <script> and <script setup> blocks.
• It does not change <script src="..."> external scripts.
• It does not touch dynamic import() or require() calls.

Example

This example shows an alias winning over a deeper relative path.

tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "paths": {
      "@app/*": ["src/*"]
    }
  }
}

Input:

import { formatName } from "../../utils/format";

Output:

import { formatName } from "@app/utils/format";