Understand Dashboard

/understand-dashboard

Overview

Launch an interactive web dashboard that visualizes a codebase's knowledge graph as a force-directed node graph. The dashboard provides layer views, dependency exploration, complexity heatmaps, and search filtering, all served locally via Vite.

Instructions

1. Determine the project directory:

   • If $ARGUMENTS contains a path, use that as the project directory
   • Otherwise, use the current working directory

2. Check that .understand-anything/knowledge-graph.json exists in the project directory. If not, tell the user:

   No knowledge graph found. Run /understand first to analyze this project.
   

3. Find the dashboard code. The dashboard is at packages/dashboard/ relative to this plugin's root directory. Use the Bash tool to resolve the path:

   PLUGIN_ROOT="$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/../.." && pwd)"
   

   Or locate it by checking these paths in order:

   • ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/packages/dashboard/
   • The parent directory of this skill file, then ../../packages/dashboard/

4. Install dependencies and build if needed:

   cd <dashboard-dir> && pnpm install --frozen-lockfile 2>/dev/null || pnpm install
   

   Then ensure the core package is built (the dashboard depends on it):

   cd <plugin-root> && pnpm --filter @understand-anything/core build
   

5. Start the Vite dev server pointing at the project's knowledge graph:

   cd <dashboard-dir> && GRAPH_DIR=<project-dir> npx vite --open
   

   Run this in the background so the user can continue working.

6. Report to the user:

   Dashboard started at http://localhost:5173
   Viewing: <project-dir>/.understand-anything/knowledge-graph.json
   
   The dashboard is running in the background. Press Ctrl+C in the terminal to stop it.
   

Examples

Example 1: Launching the dashboard for the current project

User: /understand-dashboard

The agent verifies .understand-anything/knowledge-graph.json exists in the current directory, resolves the dashboard package path at packages/dashboard/, installs dependencies with pnpm install, builds the core package, and starts the Vite dev server with GRAPH_DIR=$(pwd) npx vite --open. The browser opens to http://localhost:5173 showing the interactive graph with 47 nodes across 5 architectural layers.

Example 2: Launching the dashboard for a specific project path

User: /understand-dashboard ~/projects/my-api

The agent checks that ~/projects/my-api/.understand-anything/knowledge-graph.json exists, then starts the dashboard with GRAPH_DIR=~/projects/my-api. The user sees the knowledge graph for their API project rendered in the browser, with nodes color-coded by layer and sized by complexity score.

Guidelines

• Always verify the knowledge graph file exists before attempting to start the dashboard
• Run the Vite server in the background so the user can continue working in the terminal
• If port 5173 is occupied, Vite automatically picks the next available port; report the actual URL
• Ensure the core package is built before starting the dashboard since it depends on @understand-anything/core
• The GRAPH_DIR environment variable tells the dashboard where to find the knowledge graph file