Powerful new features added to Sider. Visualization of code quality and files to be refactored now possible

We have added two new features to Sider. Both of these features help you “find files to refactor”. They visually present multiple metrics such as code complexity, code duplication, lines of code, and number of problems detected by Sider. This makes it easy to find files and source code that could be refactored to increase development productivity. It also allows you to determine if a file should be given higher priority based on its frequency of changes.

Visual representation of files worth refactoring

Multiple source code metrics plotted to reveal those that may need refactoring

Last year, Sider started to provide a feature to inspect all files in GitHub repositories set as analysis targets and extract source code problems by static analysis. This time, in addition to that, we have analyzed and scored the cyclomatic complexity of code (depth of nesting, number of branches, etc.), number and amount of duplicated code, number of lines of code, and frequency of changes in each file. The top 30 files among them were then plotted on a graph. Through this visualization, we have accelerated the process of finding which files need the most attention to help improve development productivity.

Metrics in list form for the entire project

Metrics for each file in a sortable list form

We’ve also added a new feature that allows you to see the metrics pertaining to each file in the project and the problems they are having, one by one, so you can examine the problems of the entire project at once, not just the changes in the Pull Request.

In addition, the Issues tab can be filtered to show only specific issues, such as “security issues”.

How to use

The repository settings page in the branches section

For each repository, you can set a default analysis branch that will be analyzed. This feature is disabled by default, so you need to enable it and set which branch(es) to analyze for each repository.

Alternatively, you can analyze any branch at any time from the “Branches” tab on the Sider repository page.

Our goal

Sider will continue to actively enhance its functionality to help software developers improve their productivity. We hope you will continue to use and support us as we aim to become the world’s No.1 code review automation service.

Hiroo Kato

Hiroo is responsible for marketing and messaging. He has 15 years of experience in education and tech consulting and joined Sider while pursuing technology ventures in the field of education. Hiroo holds an MA from Oxford University and is a Certified Scrum Product Owner.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.