shadcn-ui/ui · error · Error

No `package.json` file found. Ensure you are at the root of

Error message

No `package.json` file found. Ensure you are at the root of your project.

What it means

migrateCn is a project-level migration and needs a package.json at the working directory to locate dependencies and run package-manager commands. Before doing anything it checks fsExtra.existsSync(cwd/package.json) and throws this error if absent, telling you to run from the project root.

Source

Thrown at packages/shadcn/src/migrations/cn/index.ts:27

  removeDependencies,
} from "@/src/utils/updaters/update-dependencies"
import fsExtra from "fs-extra"
import prompts from "prompts"

import { resolveMigrationFiles } from "./files"
import { createCnTransformer } from "./transform"
import { OLD_PACKAGES, type CnMigrationIssue, type OldPackage } from "./types"

export { transformCnSource } from "./transform"
export type { CnMigrationIssue, CnSourceTransformResult } from "./types"

export async function migrateCn(options: {
  cwd: string
  path?: string
  yes?: boolean
}) {
  if (!fsExtra.existsSync(path.resolve(options.cwd, "package.json"))) {
    throw new Error(
      "No `package.json` file found. Ensure you are at the root of your project."
    )
  }

  const files = await resolveMigrationFiles(options.cwd, options.path)
  const contents = await Promise.all(
    files.map((file) => fs.readFile(file, "utf-8"))
  )
  const transform = createCnTransformer()
  const results = files.map((file, index) => {
    const content = contents[index]
    return { file, content, result: transform(content, file) }
  })

  const changedFiles = results.filter(
    ({ content, result }) => content !== result.content
  )
  const unsupported = results.flatMap(({ file, result }) =>

View on GitHub (pinned to 5c7072da67)

Solutions

cd into the directory containing package.json (project or app root) and rerun the migration.
In a monorepo, run from the workspace app that has the dependencies, or set cwd explicitly to that app.
If package.json is missing because the project was never initialized, run `npm init -y` (or your package manager's init) first.

Example fix

// before
await migrateCn({ cwd: '/repo/packages/app/src' })
// after
await migrateCn({ cwd: '/repo/packages/app' })

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import { existsSync } from 'fs'
import { resolve } from 'path'
if (!existsSync(resolve(process.cwd(), 'package.json'))) {
  throw new Error('Run from the project root containing package.json')
}
await migrateCn({ cwd: process.cwd() })

Prevention

Always run shadcn commands from the directory containing package.json.
In monorepos, target the workspace app directory that owns the dependencies.
Initialize the project with npm/pnpm init before running migrations.

When it happens

Trigger: Running `shadcn migrate cn` (or migrateCn) with cwd set to a directory containing no package.json — a subdirectory like src/, a parent directory, a temp folder, or an empty repo.

Common situations: Running the CLI from a monorepo root whose workspace apps live in subdirectories (or vice versa, running inside packages/app when the CLI expects the root), running in a freshly cloned repo before `npm install` generated nothing relevant, or in a non-Node project.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of shadcn-ui/ui@5c7072da67 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/499f6b355333c742. Report an issue: GitHub.