Class Dependency Ripple: SOLID Coupling Simulator

Class / Interface Graph

Selected node

Pick a class from the dropdown (or click a node in the 3D view) and hit "Modify" to see how far a change ripples through the codebase.

Live Metrics

Blast radius (last ripple)

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Coupling edges

Avg. instability I

0.00

Avg. distance D

0.00

How it works

Each sphere is a class or interface in a small codebase. An arrowless edge A→B means "A depends on B" (A imports/calls B). Robert C. Martin's package-design metrics describe how healthy that dependency is:

Ca = afferent coupling  (classes that depend on this one)
Ce = efferent coupling  (classes this one depends on)
I  = Ce / (Ca + Ce)      Instability, 0 = rock-solid, 1 = volatile
A  = 1 if interface, 0 if concrete class   Abstractness
D  = |A + I − 1|          Distance from the "Main Sequence"

D ≈ 0 is healthy: stable code should be abstract (interfaces), volatile code should be concrete. D ≈ 1 means either the zone of pain (concrete, heavily depended-on, painful to change) or the zone of uselessness (abstract, nothing uses it).

Modify Class → Ripple — walks the dependency graph backwards (breadth-first) from the selected node to every class that transitively depends on it. That count is the "blast radius": how many files a single change forces you to touch.
Add Tight Coupling — wires one concrete class directly to another, bypassing any interface. This is what an unreviewed shortcut commit looks like: coupling and instability both climb.
Extract Interface — turns the selected class into an interface (A → 1) and strips its direct concrete dependencies, the standard fix for a class stuck in the zone of pain (this is the Dependency Inversion Principle, the "D" in SOLID).

Node color rides the same green→red scale as D; the amber wireframe shell marks interfaces. Green edges route through an interface, red edges are direct concrete-to-concrete coupling.

Low distance (D≈0, healthy) High distance (D≈1, painful) Dependency via interface Direct concrete coupling

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Class Dependency Ripple: SOLID Coupling & Change-Impact Simulator