This GitHub block allows to discover technical debt in a repository and to roughly prioritize which files to clean up first.
There's an article with more details!
- Open your repository on GitHub Next Blocks preview, e.g. if the repository is located at
https://github.com/owner/repo, then go to https://blocks.githubnext.com/owner/repo - Select the root folder of your project (or the folder that you want to explore) in the list on the left.
- On top, select the button labelled
Block: ...and paste the url of this repo (https://github.com/startup-cto/technical-debt-block) there. - Explore your technical debt.
This block is meant to help prioritize which files to clean up first. For this, it calculates a complexity for each file. Complexity is the product of the file size and the number of commits that touched the file over the last 6 months. Files that have not been touched in the last 6 months will be filtered out.
The file size is a proxy for the number of lines in the file, which is a proxy for how complex the file itself is. It could make sense to use a more accurate measure like cyclomatic complexity for each file, but usually file size is good enough to make a first assessment.
The number of commits in the last 6 months is a proxy for how often a file will be touched in the near future. If a file is not touched for a while, then even if it is quite complex, refactoring it might not be worth it right now.