Code Smell Diagnosis

Overview

Diagnose structural problems from concrete evidence. A smell is a prompt to investigate, not proof that code must change.

Procedure

1. Establish the requested scope and project facts.
2. Collect concrete structural and change-coupling evidence.
3. Match evidence against the smell catalog.
4. Apply false-positive checks.
5. Report confidence, impact, and candidates from the mapping guide.
6. If the request is diagnosis-only, do not modify business code.

Finding Contract

Every finding states location, evidence, smell ID/name, impact, confidence (HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW), candidate refactorings, priority, and material false-positive considerations. LOW confidence is never an automatic-edit signal.

Quick Reference

Need	Reference
Standard 24-smell model	Smell catalog
Evidence and false positives	Detection guide
Candidate refactorings	Smell-to-refactoring map

Common Mistakes

• Treating a metric threshold as proof.
• Reporting a smell without a file/symbol and evidence.
• Treating every loop, switch, comment, wrapper, or pipeline as defective.
• Editing code when the user asked for diagnosis only.