# Dependency Update Plan

> Use when performing dependency update plan — template for planning and executing dependency updates across projects. Covers vulnerability scanning, compatibility analysis, update sequencing, testing strategy, rollback planning, and automation setup to keep dependencies current while minimizing risk of breaking changes.

- Skill: `cloudthinker-ai/dependency-update-plan` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add cloudthinker-ai/dependency-update-plan`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/cloudthinker-ai/dependency-update-plan/raw
- Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: cloudthinker-ai (https://skillmd.com/u/cloudthinker-ai)
- Updated: 2026-09-08
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/cloudthinker-ai/dependency-update-plan

---


# Dependency Update Plan Skill

Plan dependency updates for **{{ repository }}** using **{{ package_manager }}** — scope: **{{ update_scope }}**.

## Workflow

### Phase 1 — Dependency Audit

```
CURRENT STATE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Total dependencies: ___
    - Direct: ___
    - Transitive: ___
[ ] Outdated dependencies: ___
[ ] Dependencies with known vulnerabilities:
    - Critical: ___
    - High: ___
    - Medium: ___
    - Low: ___
[ ] Lock file present and committed: [ ] YES  [ ] NO
[ ] Last dependency update: ___
```

### Phase 2 — Update Analysis

```
UPDATE CANDIDATES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Dependency         | Current | Latest | Type   | Breaking | Risk
___________________|_________|________|________|__________|______
                   |         |        | MAJOR  |          |
                   |         |        | MINOR  |          |
                   |         |        | PATCH  |          |
                   |         |        | SECURITY|         |

RISK CLASSIFICATION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HIGH risk (major version, API changes):
- ___

MEDIUM risk (minor version, new features):
- ___

LOW risk (patch version, bug fixes):
- ___

SECURITY (must update regardless of risk):
- ___
```

### Phase 3 — Update Sequencing

```
UPDATE ORDER
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Batch 1 — Security patches (immediate):
[ ] ___
[ ] ___

Batch 2 — Low-risk patches:
[ ] ___
[ ] ___

Batch 3 — Minor updates:
[ ] ___
[ ] ___

Batch 4 — Major updates (one at a time):
[ ] ___
[ ] ___

DEPENDENCY GRAPH CONSIDERATIONS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Peer dependency conflicts identified: ___
[ ] Update order respects dependency graph
[ ] No circular update dependencies
```

### Phase 4 — Testing Strategy

```
TESTING CHECKLIST (per batch)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Lock file regenerated
[ ] Build succeeds
[ ] Unit tests pass
[ ] Integration tests pass
[ ] Type checking passes (if applicable)
[ ] Linting passes
[ ] E2E tests pass for critical paths
[ ] Manual smoke test for major updates
[ ] Performance regression check
```

### Phase 5 — Rollback Plan

```
ROLLBACK
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Previous lock file preserved
[ ] Rollback procedure:
    1. Revert lock file to previous version
    2. Reinstall dependencies
    3. Verify build and tests
[ ] Maximum acceptable rollback time: ___
```

### Phase 6 — Automation Setup

```
ONGOING MAINTENANCE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ ] Automated dependency scanning enabled:
    [ ] Dependabot / Renovate configured
    [ ] Security alerts enabled
    [ ] Auto-merge for patch updates: [ ] YES  [ ] NO
[ ] Update cadence established:
    - Security: immediate
    - Patches: weekly
    - Minor: monthly
    - Major: quarterly review
[ ] Next scheduled update review: ___
```

## Counter-Rationalizations

| Shortcut | Counter | Why |
|----------|---------|-----|
| "We can skip some steps for this case" | Adapt the workflow steps, don't skip them | Skipped steps are where incidents and oversights originate |
| "The user seems to already know what to do" | Complete all workflow phases with the user | The workflow catches blind spots that experience alone misses |
| "This is a minor case, full process is overkill" | Scale the process down, don't turn it off | Minor cases become major when unstructured; the process scales, not disappears |
| "I'll fill in the details later" | Complete each section before moving on | Deferred details are forgotten; real-time capture is more accurate |
| "The template output isn't necessary" | Always produce the structured output format | Structured output enables comparison, audit trails, and handoff to other teams |

## Output Format

Produce a dependency update plan with:
1. **Audit summary** (total dependencies, outdated count, vulnerability count)
2. **Update batches** (sequenced updates with risk classification)
3. **Breaking changes** (identified API changes requiring code updates)
4. **Testing results** (pass/fail per batch)
5. **Automation recommendations** (tooling and cadence)