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Supported projects & limitations

Exactly what Orbit detects today: the only project marker it recognizes, the full technology registry, the one workspace format that works, and everything it cannot see.

Orbit's detection is deliberately narrow. It recognizes JavaScript and TypeScript projects identified by a package.json file, and it reports only the technologies held in a fixed, data-driven registry. This page documents what Orbit supports today — and, just as importantly, what it does not — so you know what to expect before you rely on it.

What counts as a project

Orbit's only project marker is a package.json file. As the scanner walks your projects directory, any folder that directly contains a package.json is treated as a project. Nothing else marks a project.

Only `package.json` — manifests such as pyproject.toml, requirements.txt, Cargo.toml, go.mod, pom.xml, build.gradle, Gemfile, composer.json, or *.csproj are ignored entirely.
A project's display name comes from the manifest's name field, falling back to the folder name when it is missing.
Technologies are read from dependencies and devDependencies only — peerDependencies and optionalDependencies are ignored.
Orbit recurses through subfolders, but skips common build and cache folders such as node_modules, .git, dist, out, .next, .turbo, .expo, .vscode, and .cursor.

Supported project types

Because detection is driven by package.json, Orbit effectively supports Node.js / JavaScript / TypeScript projects — web apps, Node services, Electron desktop apps, and React Native or Expo apps — provided they ship a package.json. Projects built on other runtimes are not detected at all.

Ecosystem	Detected today?	Project marker Orbit expects
Node.js / JavaScript / TypeScript	Yes	`package.json`
Python	No	—
Rust	No	—
Go	No	—
Java / Kotlin	No	—
Ruby	No	—
PHP	No	—
.NET / C#	No	—

"Yes" means Orbit finds the project and reads it. Anything marked "No" is invisible to the scanner today.

Detected technologies

Orbit ships a fixed registry. These are all the technologies it can currently report, grouped by category:

Languages — TypeScript. (JavaScript is listed in the registry but has no triggering package, so it does not currently appear.)
Frontend — React, Next.js, React Native, Expo
Backend — Node.js, Express, NestJS
Styling — Tailwind CSS
Database / ORM — Prisma, Mongoose, Drizzle
Tools — Vite, TanStack Query, TanStack Router, Socket.IO, Electron, electron-vite, Turborepo, Bun, Jest, Vitest, Webpack, esbuild

Technology	Category	Triggered by a dependency in `dependencies` / `devDependencies`
JavaScript	Languages	(none — currently never detected)
TypeScript	Languages	typescript
React	Frontend	react
Next.js	Frontend	next
React Native	Frontend	react-native
Expo	Frontend	expo
Node.js	Backend	express, fastify, @nestjs/core, hono, koa
Express	Backend	express
NestJS	Backend	@nestjs/core
Tailwind CSS	Styling	tailwindcss
Prisma	Database / ORM	prisma, @prisma/client
Mongoose	Database / ORM	mongoose
Drizzle	Database / ORM	drizzle-orm
Vite	Tools	vite
TanStack Query	Tools	@tanstack/react-query
TanStack Router	Tools	@tanstack/react-router
Socket.IO	Tools	socket.io, socket.io-client
Electron	Tools	electron
electron-vite	Tools	electron-vite
Turborepo	Tools	turbo
Bun	Tools	bun-types
Jest	Tools	jest
Vitest	Tools	vitest
Webpack	Tools	webpack
esbuild	Tools	esbuild

The registry lives in `src/main/scanner/data.ts`. Adding an entry there — plus a label and an icon — is all it takes to support a new technology.

Workspaces and grouping

Orbit groups related packages only when it finds a recognized workspace root. The only recognized workspace configuration is a package.json that declares a workspaces field — the npm, Yarn, and Bun convention.

Recognized: a package.json containing a workspaces field.
Not recognized: pnpm-workspace.yaml, lerna.json, rush.json, Nx, Bazel, Cargo workspaces, and other monorepo tools. These folders are treated as ordinary directories.
A workspace root's own package.json is never listed as a project — the root is a container only.
Grouping is positional: every project nested under the workspace folder is attached to the closest (deepest) workspace root that contains it.
The declared workspaces globs are not parsed. Orbit uses filesystem containment, so a project inside the folder is grouped even when the declared patterns would not match it.

Other limitations

No metadata beyond the manifest — no Git status, branch, scripts, or last-modified time yet. See the Roadmap.
A malformed or unreadable `package.json` is skipped, so that project silently does not appear.
`peerDependencies` and `optionalDependencies` are ignored, so a technology used only there will not be detected.
JavaScript never appears, because it has no trigger package in the registry.
Folders without a `package.json` are invisible, even when they clearly contain code.

Part of the Orbit documentation · v1.0.0