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Legacy Code X-Ray — Powered by IBM Bob 2.0
Every day, software developers and open-source contributors inherit unmaintained legacy codebases: fragile monoliths with zero documentation, no automated tests, and hidden technical debt. Developers spend days manually reverse-engineering tangled logic, while silent security flaws like SQL injection lurk in production paths. We built Legacy Code X-Ray to solve this end-to-end. Powered by IBM Bob 2.0 directly inside VS Code, Legacy Code X-Ray is an automated modernization workflow that transforms fragile legacy applications into secure, production-ready, modular software in minutes. Target Users & Interaction: Our target users are software engineering teams, open-source maintainers, and student developers inheriting unfamiliar systems. Developers interact with Legacy Code X-Ray through disciplined, stepwise IBM Bob 2.0 prompts. Bob inspects the repository, generates an architectural map (Mermaid SVG), documents all functions with anchored JSDocs, and produces a prioritized, line-referenced code smell audit. Next, Bob executes stepwise refactoring into clean MVC modules. Finally, users explore the interactive Legacy Code X-Ray Dashboard (featuring 3D physics, before-and-after toggles, and side-by-side diff viewers) to inspect every metric and verify code health. What Makes It Creative & Unique: Unlike generic code assistants that suggest disconnected snippets, Legacy Code X-Ray applies a systematic, safety-first methodology: 1. Complete Structural X-Ray: End-to-end visualization of data flows, database access, and risk surfaces before altering a single line. 2. Stepwise Verified Refactoring: Modular decomposition where each refactor is immediately validated by an in-memory automated test suite. 3. Interactive Proof Dashboard: A standalone, visual comparison dashboard allowing stakeholders and judges to visually audit complexity, security, and coverage transformations in real-time. Efficiency & Measurable Impact: We validated our workflow against a legacy URL Shortener monolith (400+ lines in a single file, cyclomatic complexity of 18, zero tests). The transformation yielded immediate, verified results: - Cyclomatic Complexity: Reduced from 18 to 3 (-83%). - Architecture: 1 God File refactored into 6 clean, single-responsibility modules. - Security: 100% of raw string-concatenated SQL queries converted to safe, parameterized statements. - Test Coverage: Leapt from 0% to 90%+ with 21 automated test assertions across 5 suites. - Code Duplication: Slashed from 28% to 0% via centralized validation guards. Legacy Code X-Ray turns weeks of high-risk manual refactoring into a confident 30-minute modernization process.
27 Sep 2026
