Just wondering why don't you just require package.json? It seems simpler...

Also, mind you that requires come with a penalty when in CJS; modules is a different case since they are inherently a lot faster when loading.

1. ESM doesn't have stable support for importing JSON files yet. (When it does, we'll migrate to this!)
2. When using require, Rollup isn't bundling/inlining JSON files, which breaks the browser build. (Tries to import package.json rather than inlining the JSON at build time, while there may be a fix for that I'm also concerned that it will bundle the whole package.json instead of just the version which I also don't want.)
3. Don't want to take an approach with reading it from fs as this would break the browser version where fs isn't available.

Most other projects that export a version appear to take a similar approach, which is what I referenced when I did this solution:

• Axios, which uses a gulpfile.
• Moment.js, which uses a grunt task.
• Handlebars, which also uses a grunt task.

I've only seen 2 projects so far take your approach with require, but neither is applicable in our case:

• Mongoose, but it only exports the version in the Node.js exports, and isn't available in the browser bundle.
• Winston, which requires, but lacks browser support so supporting both isn't a concern for them.

Feature parity between Node.js and browser is important for SVGO, and this seemed like the best approach for that. Then I opted for a Node.js script instead of a gulpfile or grunt task, just because we don't have too much going on yet.

If you have a better idea, you're welcome to pitch it though! I was waiting before merging, specifically to see if others would propose a better approach.

I guess I didn't consider the browser bundle, although I'm pretty sure there are ways to do it.

I guess your solution does the job too, I was just thinking out loud in case there was a simpler way :)