easement 0.1.1

Architecture quality gate for polyglot codebases
easement-0.1.1 is not a library.

easement

Architecture quality gate for polyglot codebases.

Declare the components of your system and which of them may depend on which. easement extracts the real dependencies from the code, builds the graph and fails the build when the code drifts from the declared architecture.

easement — a legal right to cross someone else's land. In easement, every allowed dependency between components is an explicit easement; everything else is trespassing.

Install

brew install mokevnin/tap/easement

Homebrew works on macOS and Linux. Other options:

  • the install script for macOS and Linux, which checks the archive against the checksums of the release and installs to /usr/local/bin:

    curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mokevnin/easement/main/install.sh | sh

    Pass -b <dir> to install elsewhere and -v <version> to pin a release: ... | sh -s -- -b ~/.local/bin -v 0.1.0;

  • .deb and .rpm packages for amd64 and arm64 on each GitHub release: sudo apt install ./easement_<version>-1_amd64.deb or sudo dnf install ./easement-<version>-1.x86_64.rpm;

  • cargo install easement;

  • prebuilt binaries for macOS, Linux and Windows, with a PowerShell installer for Windows, on each release.

Status

Early. Go, TypeScript/JavaScript, Python and Java work.

Usage

easement check                 # exit 0: passed, 1: violations, 2: error
easement check --format json   # machine-readable report
easement check --diff origin/main  # only imports added in this change
easement baseline              # legalize current violations

easement.yml lives in the project root; all paths are relative to it.

version: 1

components:
  handler:    { in: internal/handlers }
  service:    { in: "internal/services/**" }
  repository: { in: "internal/domain/*/repository" }
  model:      { in: internal/models }

common: [model]

rules:
  handler: { may_depend_on: [service] }
  service:
    may_depend_on: [repository]
    because: services never talk HTTP

exclude: ["**/*_test.go"]
  • components: an in pattern (a glob or a list of globs) names a module, whether it is a directory or a file: src/app/cli covers the cli/ directory with everything below it and a file cli.py. * stays within one directory, ** crosses directories. When several components match a file, the longest pattern wins, so a single file can be carved out of a larger component.
  • rules: an allow-list. A component may depend on itself, on common components and on what may_depend_on lists — nothing else. because is printed with every violation of the rule, so the reader (or an agent) learns where the code should go instead.
  • Files outside every component are not checked; external packages are not checked yet.
  • exclude: globs to skip. .gitignore is honoured and node_modules is always skipped.
  • python.roots: sys.path entries inside the project, default [".", "src"].
$ easement check
internal/handlers/books.go:6: handler -> repository is not allowed (imports example.com/shop/internal/repository) [dependency]

easement failed: 1 violation(s), 0 stale, 0 legalized; 5 files, 6 internal deps

Rules

Every violation carries a rule id, used in the JSON report, the baseline and suppressions.

Rule Fails when
dependency a component imports one that its may_depend_on does not list
privacy a component imports a path of another component outside that component's public API
cycle components covered by no_cycles depend on each other in a cycle
suppression-reason an inline suppression has no reason
unused-suppression an inline suppression matches no violation, or names a rule that cannot be suppressed

Public API

components:
  billing:
    in: src/billing
    public: [src/billing/index, src/billing/api]
    because: billing internals change without notice

Other components may import only the public paths (src/billing/index.ts, anything under src/billing/api); code inside billing reaches its own internals freely. A component without public is open.

Cycles

no_cycles: true                  # or a list: [billing, orders, catalog]

A group of components that all reach each other is reported once, with the shortest cycle to break:

src/billing/charge.ts:1: component dependency cycle among 3 components: billing, catalog, orders (shortest: billing -> orders -> billing) [cycle]

In diff mode a cycle is reported when any import inside it was added by the change.

Suppressions

An exception for one import, in a comment of any language, always with a reason after --:

// easement:disable-next-line dependency -- legacy admin export, remove with #123
import { exportAll } from "../admin/export";
import { client } from "../billing/generated"; // easement:disable-line privacy -- generated client

A suppression without a reason does not suppress and fails as suppression-reason. One that no longer matches a violation fails as unused-suppression, so exceptions do not outlive the code they excused. Prefer the baseline for old debt; suppressions are for deliberate, reviewed exceptions.

Baseline: adopting on an existing project

easement baseline writes current violations to easement.baseline.yml (path configurable with baseline:). After that the gate is a ratchet:

  • violations in the baseline are legalized;
  • any new violation fails;
  • a baseline entry that no longer occurs also fails, so fixed debt has to be removed from the file with easement baseline. The baseline can only shrink.

Entries are keyed by rule, file, target and components, not by line, so unrelated edits do not invalidate them. A cycle is keyed by its components.

Diff mode: judging a pull request

easement check --diff <base> reports only violations whose import line was added or changed since the merge-base with <base>, including uncommitted and untracked files. Old violations elsewhere do not fail the change, so the gate can be turned on without a baseline. In CI fetch the base branch (actions/checkout with fetch-depth: 0).

The baseline still applies, and stale entries are still reported. A rule change in easement.yml does not touch the importing lines, so it shows up only in a full easement check; run both on pull requests if the config changes often.

Languages

Language Extracts Resolves
Go import module paths from every go.mod in the repo
TypeScript / JavaScript import, export … from, import x = require(), require(), import() Node/bundler rules via oxc_resolver: relative paths, tsconfig paths, package exports, workspaces, .js → .ts
Python import, from … import, relative imports longest existing module or package under the source roots; from a import b resolves to a/b.py if it exists, otherwise to a
Java import, import static, import ….* classes indexed by their package declaration, so any source layout and multi-module builds work without configuration

Known limits: Java references by fully qualified name without an import are not seen; Python imports built from strings (importlib) are not seen.

Adding a language means implementing one trait (src/lang/mod.rs): extract imports from a file, resolve a specifier to a project path or an external module. Rules, baseline and reports are language-agnostic.

Languages whose dependencies are not visible from imports (Ruby, Elixir) are out of scope.

How it works

  1. Walk the project, parse each supported file with tree-sitter and collect imports.
  2. Resolve every import to a file or package directory inside the project, or to an external module.
  3. Map both ends to components and check each edge against the rules.
  4. Compare violations with the baseline and report.

Inspired by

easement builds on ideas from these tools, each of which covers one language or ecosystem:

  • ArchUnit: architecture rules as tests for Java.
  • dependency-cruiser: dependency rules for JavaScript and TypeScript.
  • import-linter: import contracts between Python modules.
  • Deptrac: layers and allowed dependencies for PHP.
  • arch-go: architecture checks for Go.
  • depguard: import allow and deny lists for Go.

easement puts one component model, one config and one baseline over all of them.

Development

Tools are pinned in mise.toml: mise install, mise run setup for the git hooks, then mise run check (every lint, the same set CI runs) and cargo test. Commits follow Conventional Commits; releases are cut by merging the release-please pull request.

License

MIT