serpentine analyze

Analyze a project and output the code reference graph as text or JSON.

Analyze a project and output the code reference graph. The default format is text (one edge per line as caller --type--> callee); use --format json for structured output suitable for programmatic use or agent consumption.

serpentine analyze [PATH] [OPTIONS]

Options

Option	Description
-o, --output PATH	Write output to file instead of stdout
--format TEXT	Output format: text (default) or json
--pretty	Pretty-print JSON output
--select TEXT	Selector expression to filter nodes
--exclude TEXT	Exclusion pattern (same syntax as --select)
--edges-only	Output only the edges array (compact, JSON only)
--source	Include source code blocks in text output
--include-assignments	Include variable/assignment nodes in text output
--include-standard	Include stdlib nodes (default: off)
--include-third-party	Include third-party nodes (default: off)
--state TEXT	Filter by change state: modified, added, deleted
--compare TEXT	VCS ref to compare against (branch, tag, or commit hash). Annotates output with change_status. Requires serpentine-parser[git].

Examples

Dump the full graph as text:

serpentine analyze .

Get JSON output, pretty-printed:

serpentine analyze . --format json --pretty

Get just the edges for a subgraph (compact, agent-friendly):

serpentine analyze . --select "+src.auth.*+" --edges-only --pretty

Save output to a file:

serpentine analyze . --format json -o graph.json

Filter by recently modified files:

serpentine analyze . --state modified --format json --pretty

Compare against a git ref and show only what changed:

# Annotate all nodes with change_status relative to main
serpentine analyze . --compare main --format json --pretty

# Show only modified nodes, with full source blocks
serpentine analyze . --compare main --state modified --source --pretty

Text output format

Each line in text output is one edge:

src.auth.views.login --calls--> src.auth.models.User.get
src.auth.views.login --has-a--> src.auth.forms.LoginForm
src.auth.models.User --is-a--> django.db.models.Model

This format is easy to scan and works well piped into other tools.

Edge types

Type	Meaning
calls	One entity calls another as a function
has-a	A variable holds an instance of a class (constructor call)
references	One entity names another without calling it
is-a	Inheritance — one class extends another

Selectors

Use --select to focus on a subgraph. See the Selectors reference for the full syntax, including upstream (+pattern), downstream (pattern+), and bounded-hop traversal.