Frequently asked questions

It's a free ecosystem for JavaScript and TypeScript developers: a library of more than 93 zero-dependency @lacspace packages, a set of standalone command-line tools, and create-lacspace-app — a CLI that scaffolds a finished Next.js app. Everything is documented at developer.lacspace.com and published openly to npm.

Yes. Every open package and tool is published to npm under the permissive Lacspace Free Licence v1.0 — free to use, ship, modify and use commercially, with no fees, seats or usage metering. There's no paid tier waiting to switch on.

No. There are no API keys, tokens, accounts or dashboards. You install a package or run a tool with npx and it works offline — nothing to register for and nothing metered.

The @lacspace/* packages are libraries you import into your own code (auth, SEO, money, dates, crypto and more). The tools are standalone programs you run from your terminal (scrape a site, audit SEO, analyse a HAR, generate icons). And create-lacspace-app is a scaffolder that generates a complete Next.js project pre-wired with the best of both.

The @lacspace libraries are isomorphic — they run in Node.js, the browser, edge runtimes and serverless functions, anywhere modern JavaScript runs. The command-line tools and CLIs need Node.js 20 or newer.

Yes. Everything is authored in strict TypeScript and ships hand-checked type declarations, so you get autocomplete and type safety out of the box — whether you write TypeScript or plain JavaScript.

The @lacspace libraries are zero-dependency and tree-shakeable, so you only ship what you import and never inherit a dependency tree. The standalone tools keep dependencies minimal too — most are zero-dependency, a few build on the shared scraper engine, and only lacspace-leads drives a real browser.

Both. Every library ships a dual ESM + CommonJS build with correct exports maps, so import and require both work across Node, bundlers and frameworks.

There are more than 93 packages, grouped into kits: Core, Security, SEO, React, App & Utils, Backend, Data, Commerce & Ledger, Stock, Mail, Web, the AI Kit, the Testing Kit, the Dates & Time kit and regional payments. Between them they cover authentication, JWTs, crypto, validation, forms, SEO metadata, sitemaps, Open Graph images, money, dates, CSV/Excel, caching, rate-limiting, LLM chat and streaming, prompt engineering, token counting, RAG chunking, assertions, mocking, test fixtures and snapshots, and much more.

With your package manager, for example npm i @lacspace/seo (or pnpm add / yarn add). Each package page on developer.lacspace.com/packages shows the exact install command, the API and copy-paste examples.

The developer handbook and the per-package reference at developer.lacspace.com/docs include a "which package for what" guide that maps common needs (auth, payments, SEO, dates, PDFs, validation) to the right package.

Yes — they're versioned with semver, covered by tests, and already power Lacspace's own products and this developer platform, which dogfoods the SEO, OG, sitemap, robots and RSS packages.

Yes. Because the libraries are framework-agnostic and isomorphic, they work with Next.js, Remix, Astro, SvelteKit, Express, plain Node and the browser. The React Kit adds React-specific hooks and components, and there's a dedicated Next.js helper package.

Yes. Every package has a reference page, there's a full developer handbook with runnable recipes, a downloadable PDF handbook, and a live in-browser playground for several utilities — all at developer.lacspace.com/docs.

Many are focused, zero-dependency takes on well-known libraries — for example a Zod-style validator, a Dinero-style money package, an SWR-style data-fetching hook and a jsonwebtoken-style JWT package — built to be smaller and dependency-free. The /compare page lines them up side by side.

Twenty-seven free, keyless tools: lacspace-mcp (the tools as an MCP server for Claude, Cursor and VS Code), lacspace-leads (Google Maps lead finder), lacspace-scraper (website scraper), lacspace-monitor (change & uptime monitor), lacspace-enrich (company & contact enrichment), lacspace-extract (PDF/DOCX/HTML extraction), lacspace-sql (SQL over data files), lacspace-inspect (site audit), lacspace-cron (cron toolkit), lacspace-dotenv (.env toolkit), lacspace-webhook (webhook receiver), lacspace-har (HAR analyser), lacspace-icon (favicon/PWA generator), lacspace-http (terminal API client & .http runner), lacspace-fake (fake/seed data generator), lacspace-deps (dependency & licence auditor), lacspace-json (jq-style query, convert, validate & merge), lacspace-qr (QR-code generator), lacspace-svg (SVG optimizer & converter), lacspace-i18n (translation-file linter), lacspace-changelog (Conventional-Commits changelog & semver), lacspace-schema (JSON→Schema→TypeScript codegen), lacspace-size (bundle-size budgets), lacspace-mock (local mock REST/GraphQL server) and lacspace-license (SPDX LICENSE & header manager).

Use npx, for example npx lacspace-inspect example.com or npx lacspace-scraper https://site.com --auto. Each tool's page at developer.lacspace.com/tools lists its commands and examples. You can also install one globally with npm i -g <tool>.

Both. Every tool is a command-line program and a fully-typed library, so you can run it from your terminal or import the same engine into your own code.

JSON, NDJSON, CSV and Excel, with a built-in converter between all four. Several tools also emit Markdown, HTML reports, .ics calendars or images depending on the job.

Yes — the scraper has a hosted live tester at developer.lacspace.com/tools/scraper/try that runs in your browser exactly as it would locally, including the equivalent CLI command.

No. The tools run on your machine, use only the open web and open data sources, and have no telemetry or accounts. Your inputs and outputs stay local.

lacspace-leads drives a real browser over Google Maps, so it runs on your own machine. Hosting it as a public button would breach Google's Terms of Service and can't run inside a serverless function — so it stays a one-command local tool.

The tools are robots.txt-aware where it matters and support polite delays, jitter, rate-limits, retries and a custom User-Agent. You're responsible for using them within each site's terms and applicable law — they're built to scrape considerately.

Yes, that's a first-class use case. lacspace-inspect has --min-grade and --budget gates, lacspace-har has performance budgets, lacspace-monitor has --fail-on-change, and lacspace-dotenv has a check gate and a pre-commit hook — all exit non-zero on failure so they slot straight into CI.

It's a scaffolding CLI that writes a complete, production-ready Next.js 15 + Tailwind app in seconds — pre-wired with Lacspace SEO, security headers, robots.txt, a sitemap, a working contact form, a ⌘K command palette, dynamic Open Graph images and a CI workflow.

Run npx create-lacspace-app and follow the prompts, or pass a name and template directly, e.g. npx create-lacspace-app my-site --template saas. It installs dependencies and gives you a running app.

Seven finished templates: personal, business, ecommerce, SaaS, blog (a real Markdown blog), docs (a real Markdown docs site) and marketplace. Each is a complete Next.js app you can deploy as-is or customise.

SEO metadata and JSON-LD via @lacspace/seo, a dynamic OG image endpoint via @lacspace/og, security headers, robots.txt and a sitemap, a typed contact form with a honeypot, a ⌘K command palette, and a GitHub Actions workflow that gates on an SEO crawl grade.

No. The generated app works out of the box and you can build normally. The Lacspace packages are already wired in where they help, and you can lean on them more as you go — or not at all.

Yes — every template is deployed and browsable at templates.lacspace.com, so you can see the finished result before you scaffold.

The open packages and tools ship under the Lacspace Free Licence v1.0 — a short, permissive, own-branded licence. The full text is at developer.lacspace.com/licenses/lacspace-free-1.0.

Yes. The Free Licence permits commercial use, private and closed-source use, modification and redistribution, with no royalties. Just keep the licence notice.

It's permissive in the same spirit as MIT and BSD — use, modify and ship freely, including commercially — but it's Lacspace's own branded licence rather than MIT itself. In practice it imposes no more restrictions than a typical permissive open-source licence.

No. The open packages and tools are free under the Free Licence, and a published version stays under the licence it shipped with. Some separate Lacspace products are commercial, but the developer packages and tools here are free.

Docs live at developer.lacspace.com/docs (plus a downloadable PDF handbook), and the source for the packages and tools is on GitHub at github.com/lacspace/npm-packages.

Open an issue on the GitHub repository at github.com/lacspace/npm-packages/issues. Include the package or tool name, its version, and a minimal reproduction so it can be triaged quickly.

Watch the GitHub repository, follow the @lacspace org on npm at npmjs.com/org/lacspace, and check the developer platform — new packages and tool versions flow onto the site automatically.

Yes — ideas and contributions are welcome via GitHub issues and pull requests. Tell us what you'd automate next; several tools started as exactly that kind of request.