Use cases / Architects and tech leads
Keeping the design honest, one pull request at a time
The architecture diagram says adapters do not import routes. The code did, on Tuesday, in a 400-line feature.
The problem
Designs decay one shortcut at a time, and no shortcut is big enough to argue about in review. A year later the layers only exist in the slide deck.
What visualdiff does
- The blueprint draws the codebase as layers from facts the build reads, and the change is painted over it.
- Wrong-way imports, new package cycles and new outside systems are named, and the design is graded in nine areas before and after.
- The gates you set fail the build, so the shortcut is a conversation at the pull request, not an archaeology project later.
In the sample, the Stripe adapter starts importing a route: the gate fails and the grade drops from 98 to 94.
Related
- Reviewing pull requests written by agentsAgents open pull requests faster than anyone can read them. Read the 10% that decides whether it is safe.
- Large refactors that hide a behaviour changeA refactor is supposed to change nothing. Find the one line that does.
- Stopping hallucinated dependenciesSlopsquatting: attackers register the package names models invent. Catch them at review.
- Seeing which running systems a change reachesThe diff says rds.tf. The map says orders-db, the API in front of it, and the queue behind it.