Every codebase has a story. UnderTheHood reveals what happens behind the scenes.
UnderTheHood is a repository intelligence platform built to understand software beyond individual files. It analyzes a codebase as a connected system—uncovering its structure, architecture, dependencies, and the hidden patterns that reveal how the project is really built.
Most development tools look at code one file at a time.
They answer questions like:
- Is this file valid?
- Is this function broken?
- Are there lint errors?
- Does the application build?
But a large codebase is more than a collection of files.
It is a connected system.
Files depend on other files. Modules form layers. Layers create architecture. Architecture creates boundaries. And over time, those boundaries can begin to drift.
UnderTheHood looks at those relationships.
Instead of asking only:
"What's wrong with this file?"
UnderTheHood asks:
"How is this entire system actually built?"
A useful way to understand a software system is to compare it with something we already understand: the human body.
| Human Body | Codebase |
|---|---|
| 🧠 Brain | Application |
| 🫀 Organs | Modules |
| 🧬 Nervous System | Dependencies |
| 🦴 Skeleton | Architecture |
| 🩸 Circulation | Data Flow |
| 🩹 Symptoms | Violations |
| 🩺 Diagnosis | UnderTheHood |
A human body isn't understood by examining one organ in isolation.
The same is true for software.
A module may look perfectly reasonable by itself while its relationship with ten other modules creates a structural problem.
UnderTheHood focuses on that relationship between the parts.
The visual concept:
HUMAN BODY CODEBASE
🧠 Application
│ │
┌───────┼───────┐ ┌───────┼───────┐
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
🫀 🫁 🦴 Modules Dependencies Architecture
│ │ │ │ │ │
└───────┼───────┘ └───────┼───────┘
↓ ↓
🩸 Circulation Data Flow
↓ ↓
🩹 Symptoms Violations
↓ ↓
🩺 Diagnosis UnderTheHood
The goal is simple:
Look beneath the visible surface and understand what makes the system work.
UnderTheHood follows a repository-level analysis pipeline.
┌──────────────────────┐
│ Repository │
└──────────┬───────────┘
↓
┌──────────────────────┐
│ Repository Scan │
└──────────┬───────────┘
↓
┌──────────────────────┐
│ Structure Extraction │
└──────────┬───────────┘
↓
┌──────────────────────┐
│ Dependency Graph │
└──────────┬───────────┘
↓
┌───────────────────────┐
│ Architecture Analysis │
└──────────┬────────────┘
↓
┌──────────────────────┐
│ Drift Detection │
└──────────┬───────────┘
↓
┌──────────────────────────┐
│ Repository Intelligence │
└──────────────────────────┘
UnderTheHood starts with the repository itself rather than a single file.
The project structure and supported source files are inspected.
Files and folders are transformed into a representation of the repository's structure.
Relationships between modules are analyzed to understand which parts of the system depend on which others.
The dependency relationships are used to understand architectural structure and inferred layers.
Potential structural problems are identified, including dependency-direction violations and excessive coupling.
The results are presented as an understandable view of how the repository is actually constructed.
A repository is not simply:
file
file
file
file
It is closer to:
Application
│
┌──────────┼──────────┐
↓ ↓ ↓
Routes Services UI
│ │ │
↓ ↓ ↓
Schemas Clients API Layer
│ │ │
└──────────┼──────────┘
↓
Core
This is the difference between reading code and understanding a codebase.
UnderTheHood builds relationships between modules so structural patterns can be investigated instead of treating every file as an isolated object.
Conceptually:
┌─────────────┐
│ Application │
└──────┬──────┘
│
┌──────────┼──────────┐
↓ ↓ ↓
Module A Module B Module C
│ │ │
└──────┬───┘ │
↓ │
Module D ←─────────┘
│
↓
Module E
The graph makes something important visible:
The structure of software is defined not only by where files live, but by how they connect.
Architecture is the skeleton of a software system.
It gives the system structure and establishes how different levels of the application should interact.
For generic repository analysis, UnderTheHood can infer broad structural layers.
HIGH
│
↓
┌──────────────────┐
│ Application Layer│
└────────┬─────────┘
↓
┌──────────────────┐
│ Mid Layer │
│ Services / APIs │
└────────┬─────────┘
↓
┌──────────────────┐
│ Foundation Layer │
│ Core / Config │
└──────────────────┘
These layers are an inferred analytical model rather than a requirement that every repository must follow exactly this structure.
That distinction matters.
UnderTheHood is designed to investigate the repository that exists, rather than forcing every project into one predefined architecture.
Software rarely abandons its architecture all at once. It drifts.
A project can begin with clean boundaries.
Then one shortcut becomes another.
A service starts depending directly on something it shouldn't.
A shared module becomes imported everywhere.
A folder becomes a dumping ground.
Eventually, the architecture that developers intended and the architecture that actually exists begin to diverge.
That is architecture drift.
Application
│
↓
Services
│
↓
Core
The dependency direction is predictable.
Application
│
↓
Services
│
└──────────────┐
↓
Core
↑
│
unexpected
dependency
The problem isn't necessarily that a single file is broken.
The problem is that the relationship between parts of the system has changed.
UnderTheHood looks for these structural signals.
The human-body analogy becomes useful again here.
Symptoms
↓
Investigation
↓
Dependency Relationships
↓
Architecture Analysis
↓
Diagnosis
UnderTheHood currently analyzes structural signals including:
Modules depending on one another in a cycle.
A → B
↑ ↓
└── C
Folders that become heavily shared dumping grounds for unrelated responsibilities.
Modules that become dependencies for unusually large numbers of other modules.
Dependencies that violate an inferred architectural direction.
These signals help transform raw repository relationships into actionable architectural information.
To validate the repository intelligence engine, UnderTheHood was tested against MovieExplorerPro.
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Supported | ✅ Yes |
| Architecture Profile | generic |
| Drift Score | 94 / 100 |
| Total Violations | 14 |
| High Severity | 3 |
| Medium Severity | 11 |
The drift score is an analysis result generated by UnderTheHood. It should be interpreted as a project-specific signal, not as a universal measure of code quality.
| Finding | Severity | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|
| God folder | Medium | Structural concentration around a shared folder |
| Excessive coupling | Medium | A module is depended upon by many other modules |
| Backward dependency | High | A dependency crosses the inferred architectural direction |
For example, the analysis identified modules such as:
webapp/backend/clients/tmdb.py
webapp/backend/core/config.py
webapp/backend/dependencies.py
webapp/backend/schemas/movies.py
webapp/frontend/src/api/client.js
as important structural nodes because of their dependency relationships.
The important part isn't simply the list of files.
It is why those files matter inside the larger graph.
Traditional tooling often follows this model:
File
↓
Error
↓
Fix
UnderTheHood takes a wider view:
Repository
↓
Relationships
↓
Dependency Graph
↓
Architecture
↓
Drift
↓
Diagnosis
Traditional tooling often asks:
"What is wrong here?"
UnderTheHood aims to answer:
"How is this system connected, where is its architecture drifting, and which relationships deserve attention?"
That difference is the core idea behind the project.
UnderTheHood is built as a full-stack repository intelligence platform.
┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Frontend │
│ │
│ Repository Intelligence UI │
│ Architecture / Drift Views │
└─────────────────────┬─────────────────────┘
│
│ API
↓
┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Backend │
│ │
│ FastAPI Application │
│ │
│ ┌───────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Repository Intelligence Engine │ │
│ │ │ │
│ │ Structure → Graph → Architecture │ │
│ │ → Drift │ │
│ └───────────────────────────────────┘ │
└───────────────────────────────────────────┘
The repository contains separate frontend and backend applications with an architecture-analysis service responsible for repository intelligence.
UnderTheHood currently includes:
- Repository analysis
- Repository structure inspection
- Architecture profile detection
- Generic architecture fallback
- Dependency graph construction
- Python dependency analysis
- JavaScript dependency analysis
- TypeScript dependency analysis
- JSX / TSX dependency analysis
- Architecture drift detection
- Circular dependency detection
- God-folder detection
- Excessive-coupling detection
- Generic backward-dependency detection
- Violation severity reporting
- Architecture analysis results through the application interface
The generic architecture fallback allows repositories that do not match a predefined architecture profile to still receive useful structural analysis.
UnderTheHood is intentionally moving beyond a single framework.
Instead of assuming:
"This must be FastAPI."
the analysis engine can fall back to a generic repository model:
Unknown Repository
↓
Source Discovery
↓
Dependency Extraction
↓
Layer Inference
↓
Generic Architecture
↓
Structural Analysis
This allows the platform to investigate repositories that use different structures and technology combinations.
The current system is the foundation for a broader repository intelligence platform.
Potential future directions include:
- richer dependency visualization
- deeper multi-language support
- additional architecture profiles
- architecture history
- drift tracking over time
- architecture comparison
- stronger remediation guidance
- richer repository-level insights
- more advanced structural pattern detection
These are future directions, not claims about the current implementation.
The final goal is to make repository intelligence visually understandable.
Software becomes harder to understand as it grows.
More files create more relationships.
More relationships create more architectural complexity.
And more complexity makes hidden problems harder to see.
UnderTheHood is built around a simple idea:
CODEBASE
│
↓
UNDERSTAND
│
┌─────────┼─────────┐
↓ ↓ ↓
Structure Graph Architecture
│ │ │
└─────────┼─────────┘
↓
Drift
↓
Diagnosis
↓
INTELLIGENCE
Don't just read the code.
Understand the system behind it.
Make sure the required runtimes and dependencies used by the repository are installed.
The project contains separate frontend and backend applications.
git clone https://github.com/Aravind-a1/UnderTheHood.git
cd UnderTheHoodUnderTheHood/
│
├── backend/
│ ├── app/
│ │ └── services/
│ │ └── architecture/
│ │
│ └── tests/
│
├── frontend/
│
├── README.md
├── .gitignore
└── ...
The architecture-analysis engine lives under:
backend/app/services/architecture/
The repository has been validated during development with:
- Architecture tests
- Backend tests
- Frontend TypeScript validation
- Frontend production build
The architecture analysis implementation was validated against both known architectural examples and generic JavaScript / TypeScript repositories.
UnderTheHood is being developed as an exploration into repository-level software intelligence.
Contributions, ideas, architectural discussions, and improvements are welcome.
If you find an interesting repository pattern that UnderTheHood should understand, that's especially valuable.
After replacing your README with the above, run:
git statusThen:
git add README.md assets/Underthehood.png
git commit -m "docs: add UnderTheHood showcase visual"
git push origin mainThe image will render from the repository itself, so you do not need the C:\Users\Aravind\Downloads\... path in the README.