get_dead_code

Dead-code detection that's fast (under 10 seconds for any repo size, no LLM involvement) and conservative by design. Findings are classified into confidence tiers; safe_to_delete requires confidence ≥ 0.70 and excludes dynamically-loaded patterns (*Plugin, *Handler, *Adapter, *Middleware). Framework-aware: Flask, FastAPI, Django, Rails, Laravel, and TYPO3 routes and convention files don't get flagged as unused.

When to call

• Before refactor sprints — min_confidence=0.7 to prioritize safe deletions.
• Library API audits — kind="unused_export" to find unused public symbols.
• Monorepo cleanup — include_zombie_packages=True to find packages no other package depends on.
• Aggressive cleanup — include_internals=True to also surface unused private symbols (higher false-positive rate).

Parameters

Returns

Each finding contains kind, file_path, symbol_name, confidence, reason, safe_to_delete, lines, last_commit_at, primary_owner, age_days, and last_meaningful_change.

Example

get_dead_code(min_confidence=0.7)             # safe cleanups only
get_dead_code(kind="unused_export", group_by="owner")
get_dead_code(directory="src/legacy/", include_internals=True)
get_dead_code(repo="all")                     # workspace-wide

Things worth knowing

• Confidence tiers:
  • High (≥ 0.8) — zero references, safe to delete.
  • Medium (0.5–0.8) — likely unused, may have indirect references.
  • Low (< 0.5) — possibly used via dynamic dispatch / reflection.
• Safe-to-delete heuristic — zero references and stable age (not modified in months). The threshold isn't just confidence.
• Cross-repo adjustment (workspace mode) — if a file has cross-repo consumers, confidence is reduced by 50%; if other repos depend on this repo's package, unused_export confidence drops to 30% with a verification note.
• Zombie package detection — monorepo packages flagged when no other package depends on them.
• Last meaningful change — derived from significant commits (feature/fix/refactor only, style/chore filtered out).
• Limit clamping — requests over 25 are clamped due to the MCP transport budget. limit_note will suggest tier/directory/owner filters to paginate.