CodeViz

I installed CodeViz on a 40K-line Django project I had not touched in eight months — the test was 'how fast can I get back the architectural intuition I had when I was working on it daily.' The C4 system context diagram surfaced the four main subsystems and their data flows in about 90 seconds of analysis time. The component-level diagrams correctly identified the heavy modules and the key files where business logic lived. Where it was less useful was for very small functions or trivial helpers — those got flattened into the diagram in ways that didn't add signal. For onboarding new engineers and for reviewing systems before major refactors, this earns its place in the toolkit. For day-to-day coding inside a system you already know, less so. The fact that it lives in VS Code rather than requiring a separate web tool is what makes it sticky.

★★★★☆ 4/5