impact-analysis

name	impact-analysis
description	Analyze the impact of modifying, renaming, deleting, or refactoring a symbol, module, API, route or service using CodeGraph.

Use this skill before changing code that may affect callers, callees, tests, routes, public exports or shared modules.

Goal: Provide a structured report of the potential impact of a proposed change so the user can evaluate risk and plan the work safely.

Required reference:

• Use reference/report-template.md for the final report structure and risk levels.

Shared tool policy:

• Follow ../../reference/codegraph-tool-policy.md for common CodeGraph tool selection, fallback and unavailable handling.

Task-specific tools:

• Prefer codegraph_search, codegraph_context, codegraph_explore, codegraph_node, codegraph_callers, codegraph_callees and codegraph_impact.

Workflow:

1. Ensure a fresh graph index by calling codegraph_status. If missing, request the user run codegraph init -i; if stale, request codegraph sync.
2. Read reference/report-template.md and use it to shape the output.
3. Locate the target: use codegraph_search with the provided symbol name, route path, module or keyword. For ambiguous results, examine each candidate with codegraph_node and pick the most relevant; list others for transparency.
4. If the target sits inside an unfamiliar subsystem, use codegraph_context or a bounded codegraph_explore query anchored to the target symbol before widening the analysis.
5. Inspect the selected node via codegraph_node to confirm its kind (function, class, method, module), file path, export status and context.
6. Use codegraph_callers to find direct callers. Note entrypoints such as routes, commands, controllers and test harnesses separately.
7. Use codegraph_callees to find downstream dependencies, including database calls, service calls, network calls and shared utilities.
8. Use codegraph_impact to compute a broader impact radius. Categorize results by:
   • Direct callers
   • Indirect callers
   • Tests
   • Routes or commands
   • Public exports or API surfaces
   • External integrations and side effects
9. Identify related tests and consider using test-target-finder to compute the minimal test suite.
10. Read only the smallest necessary set of source files to confirm details after the graph analysis is complete.
11. Produce a structured summary using the required sections in reference/report-template.md, including:

• Target
• Current role (public API, internal helper, CLI command, etc.)
• Direct callers
• Downstream dependencies
• Broader impact
• Tests likely affected
• Files likely to edit
• Risk level (e.g. low/medium/high)
• Recommended implementation order
• Uncertainties or questions for the user

Rules:

• Do not edit files until the impact summary is complete.
• Prefer graph-backed findings over broad grep or file scanning.
• Reserve codegraph_explore for unfamiliar areas; do not use it for narrow symbol lookups.
• Use the risk levels from reference/report-template.md.
• Clearly mark uncertain findings or dynamic behaviours.
• When using CLI fallback, state that results may be incomplete.