Impact Analysis

Impact Analysis helps you understand what will be affected when you change a file.

What is impact?

In any codebase, files are connected through dependencies.

If you modify one file, the effect can spread to others.

Impact analysis answers:

“If I change this file, what else breaks?”

Why this matters

Without impact analysis:

• You guess what might break
• You miss hidden dependencies
• Refactoring becomes risky

With impact analysis:

• You see affected files instantly
• You make safer changes
• You avoid unexpected bugs

How Code Analyzer calculates impact

During analysis, the tool:

1. Builds a dependency graph
2. Tracks how files depend on each other
3. Traverses the graph to find affected nodes

When you select a file, it computes all files that depend on it.

In the dashboard

When you click a file, you will see:

• A list of impacted files
• Highlighted paths in the graph
• Direction of impact (what depends on what)

Example

If your structure is:

• A depends on B
• B depends on C

If you change C:

• B is affected
• A is also affected

So the impact of C includes both B and A.

What to look for

Focus on:

• Files with large impact radius
• Core modules affecting many others
• Unexpected dependencies

These indicate critical parts of your system.

When to use impact analysis

• Before refactoring a file
• When debugging unexpected behavior
• When working in unfamiliar codebases

Best practice

Before making changes:

1. Select the file in the dashboard
2. Check its impact
3. Review affected modules

This reduces the risk of breaking your system.

Common use cases

• Safe refactoring
• Dependency tracking
• Risk assessment before changes

Next step

Explore CLI commands and advanced usage →