Show HN: Onboard-CLI, a LLM powered and AST-based tool to visualize codebase
This covers a coding tool or code-capability update — useful for developers assessing workflow changes and reusable value.
Onboard-CLI is an LLM-powered, AST-based tool for visualizing codebases. It uses Tree-sitter for deep parsing across multiple languages, generating structural graphs displayed on a…
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Developer platform for code parsing, systems profiling, and canvas-based node visualization.
Onboard-CLI is an advanced command-line interface tool and web-based visualizer designed to help developers quickly understand and map out large, complex codebases. By leveraging AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) parsing via Tree-sitter, Onboard-CLI generates structural topology graphs and enforces architectural boundaries, presenting them through an intuitive React Flow canvas.
🌟 Key Features
- AST Slicing Engine: Deep code parsing using tree-sitter for accurate structural node generation across multiple languages (Go, JS, TS, Python, Java).
- Interactive Visualizer (map): Automatically spins up a local React Flow canvas (http://localhost:3000/app) to visually explore code paths, dependencies, and topological maps within a specified radius.
- Architecture Drift Detection (drift): Analyzes codebase against architecture.yml rules to detect unauthorized cross-file imports and boundary violations, ensuring long-term code health.
- Comprehensive Ecosystem: Built-in commands for config management, impact analysis, code exporting, owner tracking, and project pulse.
- Modern Tech Stack: Blazing fast CLI written in Go, paired with a rich frontend utilizing Vite, React 19, @xyflow/react (React Flow), Framer Motion, and Tailwind CSS.
📊 Statistics & Capabilities
- Language Support: 5+ Built-in parsers (Go, TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Java).
- Visualization Radius: Configurable deep-mapping (default radius: 1, scales to complex dependency trees).
- Rule Enforcement: Sub-second boundary regex evaluation for architectural drift across thousands of files.
- Frontend Performance: Optimized canvas rendering for large node sets, powered by Vite & SWC/Oxc linting.
🚀 Installation
You can install Onboard-CLI using the provided installation scripts:
macOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/onboard-cli/install.sh | bash
(Or run ./install.sh directly from the repository).
Windows
Invoke-WebRequest - Uri https: // raw.githubusercontent.com / onboard - cli / install.ps1 - OutFile install.ps1; .\install.ps1
💻 Usage
1. Initialize Project
Generate the necessary .onboard.