Codebase Inspection Protocol

Inspect your Rails project structure by examining models, controllers, services, and test patterns first. This discovery phase reveals existing naming conventions, dependencies, and architectural decisions, preventing misaligned code and duplicate patterns.

Inspect for file organization, naming conventions, model relationships, service layer usage, query patterns, and testing approach. Document these observed patterns in your recommendations to maintain consistency with the existing codebase.

Yes, codebase inspection applies to Rails projects of any size. The same inspection checks—structure, patterns, conventions, dependencies, models, and testing—scale from small to large projects.

Perform inspection before writing code, before making architectural decisions, and before proposing new patterns. This ensures recommendations align with discovered conventions and avoids assumptions about project structure.

Inspect your project's app directory structure to locate service classes, query objects, and domain models. Look for patterns in how business logic is organized—services typically extract complex operations, while queries encapsulate database interactions.

Citing observed file paths grounds recommendations in your actual codebase structure and patterns. This practice ensures proposed changes align with existing conventions and helps reviewers understand the architectural context.