analyze_code_quality – Comprehensive Code Quality Assessment

Expert-level code quality analysis with maintainability scoring, complexity assessment, and actionable improvement recommendations

Perfect For

Technical Debt Assessment
Systematic evaluation of code quality debt with prioritized improvement recommendations and estimated refactoring effort.

Code Review Automation
Automated quality assessment covering maintainability, testability, and adherence to best practices with detailed scoring metrics.

Legacy Code Modernization
Comprehensive analysis of inherited codebases to identify quality issues and create systematic improvement roadmaps.

Team Development Standards
Establish and maintain consistent code quality standards across development teams with objective quality metrics.

Pre-Production Quality Gates
Quality assurance before deployment with complexity analysis, maintainability scoring, and release readiness assessment.

Quick Start

Analyze single file for quality metrics:

houtini-lm:analyze_code_quality with:
- filePath: "C:/project/src/UserService.ts"
- analysisDepth: "comprehensive"
- analysisType: "maintainability"

Project-wide quality assessment:

houtini-lm:analyze_code_quality with:
- projectPath: "C:/my-project/src"
- analysisType: "comprehensive"
- context: {"framework": "React", "typescript": true}

Quality Analysis Output

Maintainability Metrics

• Cyclomatic Complexity: Function complexity scoring with threshold recommendations and refactoring targets
• Code Duplication Analysis: Duplicate code block detection with consolidation opportunities
• Function Length Assessment: Overly long functions with decomposition recommendations
• Naming Convention Compliance: Variable and function naming consistency with style guide adherence

Architectural Quality

• Separation of Concerns: Single responsibility principle adherence with architectural improvement suggestions
• Coupling Analysis: Inter-module dependency assessment with decoupling recommendations
• Design Pattern Usage: Pattern recognition and appropriate pattern implementation suggestions
• Error Handling Quality: Exception handling completeness and error recovery pattern analysis

Testability Assessment

• Unit Test Readiness: Code structure analysis for testing ease with mockability assessment
• Dependency Injection Opportunities: Tight coupling identification with DI implementation suggestions
• Pure Function Analysis: Side effect detection and functional programming opportunity identification

Quality Analysis Example

Code Quality Issues

// Quality issues example
function processUserData(users, config, logger, validator, formatter) {
    // Long parameter list - high coupling
    var results = [];
    for (var i = 0; i < users.length; i++) {
        // Poor naming, old syntax
        if (users[i].email != null && users[i].email != '') {
            // Weak validation logic
            try {
                if (validator.validate(users[i])) {
                    var formatted = formatter.format(users[i]);
                    results.push(formatted);
                    logger.log('Processed: ' + users[i].id);
                }
            } catch (e) {
                // Generic error handling
                logger.error('Error: ' + e.message);
            }
        }
    }
    return results;
}

Quality Assessment Results

• Maintainability Score: 4/10 - Below acceptable threshold
• Cyclomatic Complexity: 8 - Exceeds recommended limit of 6
• Parameter Count: 5 - Violates 3-parameter guideline
• Naming Issues: Generic variable names (i, e, results)
• Modern Syntax: Uses var instead of const/let, loose equality operators

Improvement Recommendations

// Improved version with better quality metrics
interface ProcessingDependencies {
  validator: UserValidator;
  formatter: UserFormatter;
  logger: Logger;
}

class UserProcessor {
  constructor(private deps: ProcessingDependencies) {}

  processUsers(users: User[]): ProcessedUser[] {
    return users
      .filter(user => this.isValidEmail(user.email))
      .map(user => this.processUser(user))
      .filter(result => result !== null);
  }

  private isValidEmail(email: string): boolean {
    return email?.trim().length > 0;
  }

  private processUser(user: User): ProcessedUser | null {
    try {
      if (!this.deps.validator.validate(user)) {
        return null;
      }
      
      const processedUser = this.deps.formatter.format(user);
      this.deps.logger.info(`Successfully processed user: ${user.id}`);
      return processedUser;
    } catch (error) {
      this.deps.logger.error(`Failed to process user ${user.id}:`, error);
      return null;
    }
  }
}

Parameters

Analysis Focus Areas

• complexity: Cyclomatic complexity, function length, and structural complexity analysis
• maintainability: Code organization, naming conventions, and long-term sustainability metrics
• comprehensive: Complete quality assessment including all metrics and improvement recommendations

Advanced Configuration

Framework-Specific Quality Analysis: Leverage framework-specific best practices and patterns for targeted quality assessment.

// React component quality analysis
houtini-lm:analyze_code_quality with:
- filePath: "C:/src/components/UserDashboard.tsx"
- analysisType: "comprehensive"
- context: {
    "framework": "React",
    "typescript": true,
    "hooks": true,
    "patterns": ["composition", "hooks"]
  }

// Node.js API quality assessment
houtini-lm:analyze_code_quality with:
- projectPath: "C:/api/src"
- analysisType: "maintainability"
- context: {
    "framework": "Express",
    "patterns": ["middleware", "dependency-injection"],
    "async": true
  }

Quality Improvement Workflow:

1. Run analyze_code_quality with comprehensive analysis
2. Prioritize high-impact, low-effort improvements
3. Address complexity issues in critical paths first
4. Implement suggested refactoring patterns
5. Re-analyze to measure improvement progress

Pro Tips

Quality Metrics Priority: Focus on cyclomatic complexity reduction first - it has the highest impact on maintainability and testing ease.

Incremental Improvement: Use quality analysis for continuous improvement rather than one-time cleanup - integrate into regular development workflow.

Team Standards: Establish quality thresholds based on analysis results and use as objective criteria for code review processes.

Related Functions

• suggest_refactoring - Specific refactoring recommendations for quality improvements
• analyze_single_file - Detailed code analysis including quality assessment
• generate_unit_tests - Create tests for improved code quality and coverage
• convert_to_typescript - Type safety improvements for better code quality