Tools
What the sensors are built with. Each tool is described for any project: one tied to a language is the role it plays, found in the project, with products named only as examples.
In the project 38
- 1 Accessibility rules engine
Applies accessibility rules (WCAG) to a rendered page, and names the element behind each violation.
- 2 API diff
Compares an interface description with the one from the last release, and lists the changes that break callers.
- 3 Artifact verification
Checks what a release ships: checksums, signatures, the architecture of binaries, and the files in a package.
- 4 The project's benchmark harness
Whatever runs this project's benchmarks and keeps their results to compare against.
- 5 Browser automation
A library that drives a real browser from a script: it clicks, types and waits, and records screenshots, video and traces.
- 6 The project's build command
Whatever builds this project, found in the project itself rather than assumed.
- 7 CI workflow checker
Checks the CI workflows themselves: actions not pinned to a commit, permissions wider than needed, untrusted input in commands.
- 8 The project's coverage tool
Whatever measures which lines and branches this project's tests run, with a report other tools can read.
- 9 Dependency graph analyser
Builds the graph of imports between modules, checks it against the allowed directions, and measures its coupling.
- 10 Dependency scanner
Lists the project's dependencies and checks each against vulnerability databases and the allowed licences.
- 11 Eval runner
Runs a suite of cases against a prompt, a model or an agent many times, and scores each case's assertions.
- 12 Fault proxy
Sits between a service and a dependency in tests, and makes that dependency slow, cut off or broken on demand.
- 13 Fuzzer
Feeds a function a stream of mutated inputs guided by coverage, and keeps each input that crashes it.
- 14 git
The repository itself, read through git: the diff, the log, the state of the tree, branches and worktrees.
- 15 HTTP client
Sends a request to a service and shows exactly what came back.
- 16 Link checker
Follows the links in the project's documents, and reports the ones that lead nowhere.
- 17 The project's linter and formatter
Whatever lints and formats this project's code, found in the project itself rather than assumed.
- 18 Load generator
Sends a scripted load to a running service, and reports latency percentiles and errors against thresholds.
- 19 Migration linter
Checks database migrations for operations that lock tables, lose data or cannot be undone.
- 20 Mutation tester
Makes small changes to the code, runs the tests against each, and reports the changes no test noticed.
- 21 Outcome log
A file in the repository that loops append to: each escape, correction and verdict, with when and where it happened.
- 22 Page audit
Loads a page and scores its performance, accessibility and best practices, with the audits that cost it points.
- 23 Profiler
Samples where a program spends its time or memory, and shows the functions that cost the most.
- 24 Property-based testing library
Generates inputs for a test from a description of them, and shrinks a failing input to the smallest one that still fails.
- 25 The language's REPL and debugger
The interactive tools of the project's language: a REPL to call the code, a debugger to stop it and read its values.
- 26 Schema validator
Validates a YAML or JSON file against its JSON Schema, and names the field that breaks it.
- 27 Schema-driven API tester
Generates requests from an API's schema, sends them to the running API, and checks every response against the schema.
- 28 Scripted model responses
Replaces a language model in tests with recorded or scripted responses, so tests of an AI feature give the same result every time.
- 29 Scripted terminal
Runs a terminal app in a terminal of fixed size that a script can type into and read back.
- 30 Secret scanner
Finds credentials in files, staged changes and the git history.
- 31 Size budget
Measures the size of what users download (a bundle, a package, a binary) and fails when it passes its limit.
- 32 The project's snapshot library
Compares output with an approved reference stored in the repository, and shows the difference when they part.
- 33 Static security scanner
Reads the source for code patterns known to be unsafe, and reports each with its rule and place.
- 34 Syntax-tree pattern rules
Rules written as code patterns over the syntax tree, for conventions no stock linter knows.
- 35 The project's test command
Whatever runs this project's tests, found in the project itself rather than assumed.
- 36 Throwaway dependencies
Real dependencies (a database, a queue, a cloud API emulator) started in containers for one test run and removed after it.
- 37 Translation catalog check
Checks the project's messages and translations: hard-coded strings, missing keys, placeholders that differ between locales.
- 38 The project's type checker
Checks the types of the code without running it, where the language has a checker separate from its build.
Outside the project 17
- 1 Backup and restore
The database's own tools for backing up and restoring, used to prove that a backup can actually be restored.
- 2 Chaos platform
Injects failures into a running environment (processes killed, network delayed, resources exhausted) while checking that it stays healthy.
- 3 The CI system
Where the project's checks run on every pull request and push, with each job's status and log.
- 4 The code host
Where the project's pull requests, reviews, checks and protected branches live, reached from the command line or its API.
- 5 Contract broker
Stores the contracts consumers expect from a service and the provider's verification of each, so a deploy can ask whether it is safe.
- 6 Dynamic security scanner
Probes a running copy of the app from outside, and reports the addresses that respond unsafely.
- 7 The project's error tracker
Where the project's production errors are grouped into issues, with stack traces, counts and the releases they appear in.
- 8 Feedback channel
The ways users tell the team what works and what does not: an in-product feedback command, a form, the support desk, experiment results.
- 9 Health endpoints
The addresses a service answers on to say whether it is alive and ready, and the platform's probes that call them.
- 10 Isolated environment
An environment of its own for each agent run: its own checkout, dependencies, network rules and secrets.
- 11 The issue tracker
Where bugs, requests and their discussion are kept, with templates that make a report complete.
- 12 The project's log store
Where the project's logs are kept and queried, found in its configuration rather than assumed.
- 13 The project's metrics store
Where the project's metrics are kept and queried, with its alert and SLO rules.
- 14 Model API
A direct call to a language model with a rubric prompt and a structured answer, outside any agent.
- 15 Preview environment
A running copy of the change, deployed for each pull request at its own address, for the checks that need the app to run.
- 16 Rollout controller
Rolls a release out step by step, checks it against metrics at each step, and rolls it back on failure.
- 17 The project's trace store
Where the project's traces are collected and queried, fed by the instrumentation in its code.
In the coding agent 9
- 1 Browser access for the agent
Gives the agent itself a browser to act in, through the page's accessibility tree, with the console and network in view.
- 2 Fresh-context agent
A separate agent run that starts with none of the working session's context, has read-only tools, and returns a structured verdict.
- 3 The agent's hooks
Commands the coding agent runs before and after each tool call and when it is about to stop, which can record the call or refuse it.
- 4 Interrupt and rewind
The coding agent's controls to stop it in the middle of a step, and to roll its changes back to an earlier point.
- 5 Language server
Gives the agent diagnostics for the file it just edited, before any build.
- 6 The agent's permission rules
The coding agent's rules for which actions run, which are refused, and which go to a person or a model first.
- 7 Plan mode
A mode in which the coding agent may only read and plan, until a person approves the plan.
- 8 The agent's question tool
The coding agent's way to put a question to a person, with a few options and a free answer, and wait for it.
- 9 Session transcripts
The record the coding agent keeps of each session: the prompts, the tool calls and their results.