napi - Better Software Architecture for the AI Age
napi - Better Software Architecture for the AI Age
napi is a versatile tool built by NanoAPI and designed to automatically
provide insights into the architectural complexity of your software, while
allowing for the novel extraction of functionality from codebases into smaller
units. With both a powerful CLI and an intuitive UI, napi is compatible with
all major CI/CD platforms, allowing seamless integration into your development
and deployment pipelines.
Historically, tools like this have only been built by large consulting firms or
contractors and kept behind the paywalls of consulting fees. napi aims to make
these tools accessible to developers of all skill levels, without the cost. Our
vision is to help you gain deeper insights into system architecture-level
concerns before they become hundred-million-dollar problems. The added benefit?
No more black-box tools running on your code and the confidence of a 100%
determinstic tool.
Features
- 🚨 Audit: Pinpoint areas of your code that need refactoring or cleanup.
- 📝 Refactor: Extract functionality using the UI to improve architecture.
- 🏗️ Build: Generate modular microservices ready for deployment.
- ⚙️ Integrate: Use CLI commands compatible with all CI/CD workflows for automation.
- 🔍 Architecture: Get a live view of all your software and their interactions; scoped to a specific moment in time.
Why napi?
- Enables discovery into legacy systems: indentify problematic code and potential improvements early.
- Modular Monoliths: Simplifies the process of extracting functionality using non-AI strangler refactoring.
- Risk assessment: Improve understanding, maintainability, and robustness at both the architecture and code level.
- Refactoring ROI: Reduces dependency on outside sources for complex refactoring tasks.
- From black box to open-book: Gain a deeper trust of what your system is doing today - even in the face of AI-generated code.
Supported Languages
napi aims to support all major programming languages. Here is the current
status:
| Language/Framework | Status |
|---|---|
| Python | ✅ Supported |
| C# | ✅ Supported |
| C | ✅ In Progress |
| Java | 🚧 In Progress |
| C++ | 🚧 In Progress |
| PHP | 🚧 In Progress |
| JavaScript | 🚧 In Progress |
| TypeScript | 🚧 In Progress |
For the latest updates, visit our project board.
Installation
napi works out of the box on both mac and linux systems.
To use this tool on Windows, you will need to install and run the CLI commands from there.
WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
To install napi, you can use our installation script:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nanoapi-io/napi/refs/heads/main/install_scripts/install.sh | bash
Our download and install manually from:
https://github.com/nanoapi-io/napi/releases/latest
This will download and install the latest version of napi to your system.
CLI Usage
napi provides a streamlined Command-Line Interface (CLI) to interact with and
refactor your software projects quickly and efficiently.
For a full list of commands, run:
napi --help
Overview of all commands
napi init
Initialize the project. This step is required before running any other command.
This will create a .napirc configuration file in the project root, storing paths and settings necessary for further commands.
napi manifest generate
Generate a manifest of your codebase that captures its structure, dependencies,
and relationships. This command analyzes your code and writes the manifest data
to the configured napi_out directory in your project.
napi manifest view
Open the NanoAPI UI in your default browser to visualize and explore the
manifest generated by napi manifest generate. This provides an interactive
view of your codebase's architecture, helping you identify areas for potential
improvements and refactoring.
napi extract
Extract specific symbols (functions, classes, etc.) from your codebase into
separate files. Use the format --symbol file|symbol where file is the path
relative to your project root and symbol is the name to extract. The UI can
generate these commands for convenient copy-pasting when browsing your code.
Important: Run
napi manifest generatewhenever you make significant changes to your codebase to ensure your manifest stays up-to-date. The manifest data can be integrated into CI/CD workflows to track architectural changes over time.
CI/CD Integration
napi works seamlessly with CI/CD platforms like GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD,
and Jenkins. This allows us to build the code manifest needed for visualization
and refactoring in the background, without needing to wait for it to run locally
in the case of very large codebases (>1M lines of code).
More information
Contributing
We welcome contributions from the community. Please read our contributing guide for details on how to get involved.
License
napi is licensed under the
Sustainable Use License.
Further Reading
- Automating the Strangler Pattern with Microlithic Development
- Rise of the "Microlith": Rethinking Microservices for Modern Developers
Donations
NanoAPI is a fair-source project. Because of this, we feel it would be unethical to keep any donations to ourselves. Instead, here is how we will handle donations:
- Donations go into a pool
- Money from the pool will be distributed to contributors
- At the end of the year, any remaining money will be donated to a charity of the community's choice
We will post regular updates on how much money is in the pool and how it is being distributed.