Every codebase accumulates debt over time. Dead functions nobody calls. Files so complex they're impossible to change safely. Copy-paste code scattered across 6 different files. Dependencies so tangled that touching one file breaks three others.
I built Archaeologist to address all of this in one install.
pip3 install archaeologist
Here's how each of the 5 tools works.
⬡ Codebase Graph
archaeologist-graph ./my-project
Opens an interactive browser map of your architecture. Files rendered as cards, colored by health — green (clean), gold (has dead code), red (fully unused), purple (entry point). Grouped by folder using Dagre.js layout. Click any card to see every file that depends on it.
◎ Change Impact Analyzer
archaeologist-impact ./my-project --all --html
Before touching any file, see its blast radius. Builds a reverse call graph — every caller, every importer, test coverage — and produces a 0–100 risk score. The --all flag scans every file and ranks them by blast radius.
◈ Complexity Scorer
archaeologist-complexity ./my-project --html
Scores every function on cyclomatic complexity — decision branches, nesting depth, line count. Ranked worst-first. Labels: Very Complex (30+), Complex (15–29), Moderate (8–14), Simple (0–7).
⧉ Duplicate Detector
archaeologist-dupes ./my-project --html
Three signals: same name in different files, exact body match, near-identical bodies (85%+ similarity). Excludes common OOP names like toString/equals/hashCode to avoid false positives.
☠ Dead Code Finder
deadcode ./my-project --explain
deadcode-clean ./my-project --dry-run --min-confidence 85
deadcode-clean ./my-project --min-confidence 85
Static analysis alone has too many false positives. So I added git history as a second signal.
Each flagged function gets a 0–100 confidence score:
| Signal | Points | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Call graph | 45 | Zero inbound calls from non-test code |
| Git age | 20 | File untouched for 2+ years |
| Author count | 15 | Single author ever committed |
| Recursive dead | 10 | All callers are also flagged |
| Commit count | 10 | Only 1–2 total commits ever |
The auto-delete pipeline: isolated git branch → AST byte-range deletion → tests run → PR opened if tests pass. Main branch never touched.
False positive rate
Tested on 44 open source projects — Flask, Django, FastAPI, Rails, Gin, Vue, Zod, Actix, JUnit5, Alamofire and more. Zero false positives at 80%+ confidence on all of them.
Try it
pip3 install archaeologist
Website: https://prathik-arun.github.io/archaeologist
GitHub: https://github.com/prathik-arun/archaeologist
Would love feedback on false positive rate on your own codebases.