Codebase Inspection

What this is

Inspect builds structured understanding of a codebase area through two complementary lenses:

• Pattern inspection — discover the area's grain: conventions, shared abstractions, naming, error handling, imports. Answers: "What patterns should I follow and what should I build on?"
• System tracing — follow call chains, map transitive dependencies, identify blast radius and surface area touched. Answers: "What does this connect to and what breaks if I change it?"

Pattern inspection is horizontal (what do peers look like?). System tracing is vertical (what does this flow through?). An inspection can use either lens or both, depending on purpose.

Inspect is factual, not prescriptive. It reports what exists — conventions, flows, dependencies. It does not evaluate whether patterns are good, recommend changes, or propose architecture.

Output defaults to conversation. Saving to a file is fine when it makes sense (e.g., feeding an implementation prompt, saving as spec evidence), but default to ephemeral — codebases change, and saved output gets stale.

What this is NOT

• Not architecture evaluation — describes what exists, does not judge it
• Not external research — purely this codebase, not docs/blogs/APIs