Feature request - Get package with version closest to a provided timestamp or date

[sickl8]

I'm requesting this simple feature, the user provides a timestamp or date in the query params, and gets back the earliest version of that package according to that piece of information.

Examples:

// date example, format is yyyy[-mm[-dd]]
esm.sh/lodash?as_of=2025-01-15 -> lodash@4.17.21
esm.sh/lodash?as_of=2024-05 -> esm.sh/lodash?as_of=2024-05-01
esm.sh/lodash?as_of=2023 -> esm.sh/lodash?as_of=2023-01-01

// timestamp example, using Date.now(), format is <number><ms|s>
esm.sh/lodash?as_of=1737386576174ms -> esm.sh/lodash?as_of=1737386576s
esm.sh/lodash?as_of=1737386576s -> lodash@4.17.21

It removes the need to know exactly what version you're going to use, sort of like when doing npm install <package> without specifying a version, but you still get a fixed version in your package.json for the next time you npm install

[ije]

interesting idea! but how do we know the specified version by date? it there an API can do this? esm.sh fetches packages only when requested.

[sickl8]

@ije
for npm, you can use the time field in the json returned from https://registry.npmjs.org/lodash
for jsr (uses an npm compatibility layer), the same but from https://npm.jsr.io/@jsr/tlevi__lodash (note that tlevi__lodash|@tlevi/lodash is not the official package)

[sickl8]

[ije]

yeah, i like the idea! lets add it in v137

[sickl8]

@ije excellent! where can we discuss implementation details? I would like to implement it and so we need to agree on how the feature works exactly and what it does on the server.

[ije]

hi @sickl8 thanks! i have did some progress, if you like to implement it i'm happy to close #1051 (we can discuss the implement deitals on my unfinished changes) 🙏