sourcecode 2.5.5

Persistent structural context and ultra-fast repeated analysis for AI coding agents

ASK Engine

ASK — Actionable Software Knowledge. Persistent structural intelligence for AI coding agents.

Context · Impact · Migration · Architecture · Review — everything from one structural model.

ASK Engine is the product. The CLI command is ask. The legacy sourcecode command still works as a deprecated alias (it prints a one-line notice and forwards to ask) and remains the Python/PyPI package name for now. The authoritative version is whatever ask version reports. See docs/PRODUCT_IDENTITY.md.

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The problem

Every time an AI coding agent starts a new session, it has to re-parse the repository from scratch. For a large Java or TypeScript monolith, that means 5–15 seconds per invocation. Multiply by dozens of agent turns per hour, and repo context acquisition becomes a real bottleneck — not just latency, but tokens, compute, and iteration velocity.

ASK Engine solves this with a persistent structural cache keyed on file content hashes. After the first scan, every subsequent invocation returns pre-built context in milliseconds. The repo doesn't change? The cache doesn't expire.

The cache is not a performance optimization. It is what makes ASK Engine usable as infrastructure rather than a one-off tool.

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Proof — measured on real repos

Repo	Size	Cold scan	Cache hit	Speedup
Keycloak	7,885 Java files	10.5s	0.6s	~17x
BroadleafCommerce	2,985 Java files	2.7s	0.3s	~9x

Cache keyed on content hashes — invalidated only when source changes. On repeated agent sessions against the same codebase, nearly every invocation is a cache hit.

At 0.3s per call, ASK Engine becomes constant infrastructure inside agent loops — call it before every edit, every PR review, every test run, without batching or caching manually.

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Install

# Homebrew (macOS / Linux)
brew tap haroundominique/sourcecode && brew install sourcecode

# pip / pipx
pipx install sourcecode        # or: pip install sourcecode

ask version                    # ask 2.5.1

Package vs. command. The install package is named sourcecode this release (renaming the distribution is a separate, breaking change). Installing it gives you the canonical ask command plus the deprecated sourcecode alias.

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Quickstart

# High-signal structural summary — warm cache ~0.3s, cold 2–10s
ask --compact

# Blast radius: what breaks if this class changes?
ask impact OrderService /path/to/repo

# Spring Boot 2→3 migration readiness (bounded decision summary)
ask migrate-check /path/to/repo --compact

# Spring semantic audit: TX anomalies + security surface
ask spring-audit /path/to/repo

# Onboard to an unfamiliar codebase
ask onboard /path/to/repo

# PR review: risk, test gaps, changed modules
ask review-pr /path/to/repo --since main

Full command reference: docs/USER_GUIDE.md.

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Capabilities

Everything is computed from one cached structural model. Seven groups:

1 · Structural Context

Bounded, noise-free repo context designed to drop straight into an agent's context window. ask --compact · ask --agent · ask onboard · ask cold-start → reference

2 · Impact Analysis

Blast radius from a class or interface — reverse dependencies, through Spring DI, to the HTTP endpoints a change reaches. ask impact · ask impact-chain (TX/SEC-enriched) · ask pr-impact → reference

3 · Architecture Intelligence

The system map: module graph, dependency views, REST surface, per-class summaries, and a symbol-level IR for downstream tooling. ask export · ask repo-ir · ask endpoints · ask explain → reference

4 · Migration & Modernization

Is this codebase ready to upgrade? Per-dimension readiness (Jakarta / Spring Boot / JDK / Hibernate), located blockers, and an effort estimate. ask migrate-check · ask modernize → migrate-check reference · MODERNIZATION.md

5 · Spring Analysis

Deterministic Spring semantics: transactional anomalies (e.g. @Transactional on a private method = silent CGLIB no-op), security surface, request-body validation. ask spring-audit · ask validation → reference

6 · Developer Workflows

The everyday loop: diff-based PR review, symptom-driven bug triage, and delta context for continuous agent runs. ask review-pr · ask fix-bug · ask prepare-context → reference

7 · Utilities

ask rename-class (word-boundary Java rename) · ask chunk-file (split large files for agents) · ask cache (status / warm / clear / freshness) → reference

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What it does — and doesn't

ASK Engine reduces exploration cost. It accelerates context acquisition and computes blast radius; it does not replace reading code — it reduces how often an agent needs to. All signals are static and deterministic (annotations, import graph, file structure) — no runtime analysis, no LLM guessing.

Honest limits worth knowing before you rely on it:

• impact on an implementation class (OrderServiceImpl) returns 0 callers in Spring Boot — callers inject the interface. Always target the interface.
• no_security_signal on an endpoint means no recognized method-level annotation, not "unsecured" — Spring Security filter chains and custom authorization annotations show as no_security_signal unless taught via config (below).
• spring-audit / impact-chain are Java/Spring only; non-Java repos return spring_detected: false.
• Event topology (--type events) resolves Spring ApplicationEvent / @EventListener chains only — not Kafka/RabbitMQ/Redis routes.
• Architecture classification is tuned for Spring MVC layered apps; SPI/plugin models (e.g. Quarkus extensions) may be misclassified. JAX-RS subresource-locator endpoint recall is ~65%.
• Self-invocation @Transactional bypass (same-class call skipping the proxy) is not detected.

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Pricing

🎉 Early-adoption: Pro is currently unlocked for everyone. Every install runs with full Pro entitlements — no size gate, no key. The tiers below describe the model the paywall will return to later.

Gating is by repo size and automation — never by command. Every command runs at full power on Free for small and mid-size repos; you upgrade when the work gets bigger or automated.

	Free — €0	Pro — €19/mo · €190/yr per dev
Repo size	≤ 500 Java source files	> 500 Java files (enterprise monoliths)
Commands	All of them, full output	Same commands, unlocked at scale
impact / fix-bug / review-pr / modernize	✅ full on small repos	✅ full on large repos (Free gets a capped preview)
prepare-context delta	30 free runs/repo	unlimited — CI/CD automation
MCP local server, offline, no data egress	✅	✅

Non-Java repos are free at any size — the size limit counts Java source files only. ASK Engine monetises enterprise Java monoliths. Activate with ask activate <key>. Full breakdown: docs/PRODUCT_TIERS.md.

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Configuration & privacy

ask config              # version, config file path, telemetry status
ask telemetry disable   # anonymous telemetry is on by default (opt-out)

Telemetry collects version, OS, commands, flags, duration, repo-size range, and errors — no source code, paths, secrets, or output. Disable any time with export SOURCECODE_TELEMETRY=0 (or DO_NOT_TRACK=1).

Custom security annotations. Teach endpoints, spring-audit, and explain about project-specific authorization annotations via an optional sourcecode.config.json at the repo root (otherwise they report policy: "none_detected"):

{
  "customSecurityAnnotations": [
    { "fullyQualifiedName": "com.example.security.CustomSecurityAnnotation", "shortName": "CustomSecurityAnnotation" }
  ]
}

Matching endpoints report policy: "custom" and drop out of the no_security_signal count.

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Documentation

Doc	What it covers
USER_GUIDE.md	Full command reference, flags, output schema, workflows
migrate-check.md	Migration rule catalogue (MIG-001..043) + Hibernate stratification
MODERNIZATION.md	The modernization product: assess → understand → plan → execute
PRODUCT_TIERS.md	Free vs Pro, pricing model
DEMO-5MIN.md	A reproducible 5-minute demo
MANUAL-USUARIO.md	Guía de usuario en español
PRODUCT_IDENTITY.md	ask (command) vs sourcecode (package/alias)
privacy.md	Telemetry and data-handling policy