• Documentation

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?

• Application Library: napi is not just a CLI tool; it is a comprehensive application library of all projects and their interactions within your organization.
• 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	✅ Supported
Java	✅ Supported
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, linux, and windows systems.

To install napi, you can use our installation script:

Unix Systems (MacOS, Linux)

Wyou to install napi using our convenience script:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nanoapi-io/napi/refs/heads/main/install_scripts/install.sh | bash

You can also download and install the latest release manually directly from our GitHub repository:

https://github.com/nanoapi-io/napi/releases/latest

Windows

You can run napi using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install

We are actively working on supporting windows natievely.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any issues during installation, please refer to our Troubleshooting Guide

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 login

Authenticate with the NanoAPI service. This step is required to access the NanoAPI UI and to use certain features of napi.

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 and pushes it to your NanoAPI workspace in the app.

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 generate whenever 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.