Hotspot Detective

Hotspot Detective

"Code that changes together, breaks together." Find the most volatile parts of your codebase.

Capabilities

• Churn Analysis: Identify files with the most commits.
• Complexity-Churn Matrix: Cross-reference hotspots with complexity.
• Coupling Detection: Find files that often change in the same commit.

Tools

1. Find Top Hotspots (Churn)

Files changed most frequently in the last 6 months.

git log --since="6 months ago" --name-only --format="" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20

Interpretation:

• Top files are your "active complexity".
• If a file is in the top 5 AND has high complexity (from uncomplex), it is a Critical Refactoring Candidate.

2. Find Recent Volatility

What are we working on right now? (Last 30 days)

git log --since="30 days ago" --name-only --format="" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20

3. Find Temporal Coupling (Co-Change)

"When I change A, I usually have to change B."

# Find commits touching a specific file, then list other files in those commits
git log --name-only --format="" $(git log --format="%H" -- <file>) | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -10

Usage:

1. Identify a hotspot (e.g., user_model.py).
2. Run this command on user_model.py.
3. If auth_service.py appears at the top, they are tightly coupled.

Workflow

1. Scan: Run "Find Top Hotspots".
2. Cross-Ref: Run uncomplex on the top 3 files.
3. Diagnose:
   • High Churn + High Complexity = Refactor Immediately.
   • High Churn + Low Complexity = God Class / Config Dump.
   • Low Churn + High Complexity = Stable (Leave alone).

Dependencies

• git (Pre-installed)