Reverts #31338

I want to do a beta release without this change first.
I'll re-apply it later.

Greptile Summary

Updated On: 2025-09-16 09:48:16 UTC

This PR reverts the comprehensive replacement of the empathic package with traditional utility packages across the entire Storybook codebase. The original change (PR #31338) attempted to consolidate multiple file system utility packages (find-up, find-cache-dir, resolve-from, fd-package-json, read-pkg-up) with the single empathic package for improved performance and reduced bundle size.

The revert affects critical infrastructure throughout Storybook:

Package Manager Integration: All package manager proxies (NPM, Yarn1, Yarn2, PNPM, BUN) revert from empathic/find and empathic/package back to their original dependencies for package.json discovery and module resolution.

Framework Presets: Angular, React, Vue3, and Ember frameworks restore their original file resolution patterns using find-up for locating configuration files like tsconfig.json and package.json files.

Build System: Vite and Webpack builders revert cache directory resolution from empathic/package back to find-cache-dir, and TypeScript configuration discovery returns to using find-up.

CLI and Initialization: The create-storybook CLI, project detection, framework detection, and Vitest integration all revert to their original async file discovery patterns using find-up.

API Changes: The revert introduces several key API differences - empathic's synchronous operations become asynchronous again (requiring await keywords), parameter names change (e.g., last becomes stopAt), and some functionality like findFilesUp with glob support is removed entirely.

Testing: All corresponding test files update their mocks to match the reverted implementations, ensuring test coverage remains intact.

The changes maintain functional equivalence while reverting to the well-established, battle-tested utility packages that were previously used throughout the Storybook ecosystem.

Confidence score: 4/5

• This revert appears safe as it's returning to a previously working state, but the large scope affects critical path resolution functionality
• Score reflects the comprehensive nature of the changes and potential for missed async/await conversions in the large codebase
• Pay special attention to files with complex async/sync transitions and ensure all empathic references are properly reverted