CI/CD Integration: Automated Dependency Tracking for Python Projects

Why Dependency Analysis Belongs in CI/CD

Traditional CI/CD checks code quality. Dependency analysis checks architectural quality. Without it: Developers accidentally create circular imports

Complexity metrics quietly double

Technical debt goes unnoticed until it's critical

Refactoring regressions ship to production

With it: Every PR shows dependency impact upfront

Complexity regressions are caught immediately

Team maintains architectural standards

Deployments are safer

GitHub Actions Setup (5 minutes)

Step 1: Create Workflow File

Step 2: Create Threshold Checker

Step 3: Add PR Comment Bot (Optional)

Advanced: Track Metrics Over Time

Integration Options

Jenkins

GitLab CI

What to Monitor

✅ Most-called functions (complexity hotspots) ✅ Total function call edges (coupling metric) ✅ Orphaned functions (dead code detection) ✅ Import relationships (module coupling)

Best Practices

1. Run on every PR: Catch complexity early
2. Set realistic thresholds: Based on your codebase baseline
3. Track trends: Monitor metrics over time
4. Cache database: Reuse .code-explorer/graph.db for faster runs
5. Incremental analysis: Only re-analyze changed files

Performance Optimization

Monitoring & Alerting

Track metrics over time

Slack notifications

Real-World Example: PR Comment

What developers see on every PR:

Best Practices

✅ DO: Start with monitoring (no failures), then enforce ✅ DO: Allow threshold overrides with PR approval ✅ DO: Review thresholds quarterly ✅ DO: Integrate with incident tracking ❌ DON'T: Set thresholds too strict initially ❌ DON'T: Block all PRs without override option ❌ DON'T: Ignore architectural regressions

Next Steps

1. Choose your CI/CD platform (GitHub/Jenkins/GitLab)
2. Set thresholds based on your codebase
3. Run analysis locally first: code-explorer analyze ./src
4. Find and fix existing issues before enabling gates
5. Enable blocking gates after baseline established

---

Pro Tip: Start with warnings only. After 2 weeks, move to blocking gates. This prevents initial PR chaos while establishing new standards.