removed vuleranilities

[stoicbrains]

Summary of Changes: Remove Unused Dependencies and Fix Security Vulnerabilities

Identified and Removed Unused Dependencies
Identified three unused dependencies through codebase searches (grep and semantic search). Confirmed lodash.template, node-static, and the incorrect node package had no imports or requires anywhere. Removed them from package.json and uninstalled them.

Eliminated Critical Security Vulnerabilities
Resolved 6 security vulnerabilities:

Removed lodash.template (HIGH severity - Command Injection, GHSA-35jh-r3h4-6jhm - no fix available)

Removed node-static (HIGH severity - Directory Traversal, GHSA-5g97-whc9-8g7j - no fix available)

Fixed minimist via optimist (CRITICAL severity - Prototype Pollution, GHSA-vh95-rmgr-6w4m)

Fixed @babel/helpers (MODERATE severity - RegExp complexity)

Fixed brace-expansion (LOW severity - ReDoS)

Result: 0 vulnerabilities remaining (verified via npm audit)

Automated Security Fixes
Ran npm audit fix to automatically update vulnerable transitive dependencies to patched versions. This updated 8 packages while maintaining compatibility with existing functionality.

Verified Functionality and Maintainability
Verified the project remains functional after cleanup:

All npm scripts (lint, test, start) execute correctly

All required dependencies (express, compression, etc.) are present and functional

Zero breaking changes — the application behavior is unchanged

Cleaner dependency tree — removed unused packages reduces install time and confusion for contributors

Impact: The project is now more secure (0 vulnerabilities), cleaner (only used dependencies), and maintainable (reduced attack surface and simpler dependency management).

[github-actions]

✅ All Jest tests passed! This PR is ready to merge.

[stoicbrains]

@omsuneri please review my PR