HomeUse Cases
Scenarios

Real-World Use Cases

Nomik isn't theoretical. These are the scenarios engineers face every day — and how a persistent knowledge graph changes the outcome.

🚀 New Developer Onboarding

The Problem

A new engineer joins the team and spends days reading code, asking teammates, and piecing together how the system works.

With Nomik

Ask your AI: "Give me a codebase briefing." Nomik returns the full architecture — file count, routes, DB tables, external APIs, high-risk functions — in seconds.

AI Prompt:"Give me a codebase briefing"
Tools used:nm_onboard
terminal
$ nomik onboard
2,847 functions across 312 files
15 routes · 3 DB tables · 5 external APIs
High-risk: processPayment (23 callers)
✔ Briefing complete

🔧 Safe Refactoring

The Problem

You need to rename or modify a function but you don't know what depends on it. Grep returns 52 results — comments, imports, logs, tests — and you still miss the cron job.

With Nomik

Ask your AI: "What breaks if I change processPayment?" Nomik traverses the graph and returns every route, function, cron job, and DB table that depends on it.

AI Prompt:"What breaks if I change processPayment?"
Tools used:nm_impact
terminal
$ nomik impact processPayment
8 downstream dependents:
Route POST /api/checkout
Route POST /api/batch
Cron monthly_billing
Func handleRefund (4 more...)
✔ Impact analysis complete

📋 PR Review & Blast Radius

The Problem

A pull request touches 5 files. The reviewer approves it, but nobody notices that a deleted function had 8 callers across the codebase.

With Nomik

Run nomik pr-impact before merging. It compares the graph state with the new parse, classifies every changed symbol, and calculates the blast radius automatically.

AI Prompt:"What's the blast radius of my PR?"
Tools used:nm_diff + nm_impact
terminal
$ nomik pr-impact --base main
5 files changed · 3 symbols affected
💀 validateToken — DELETED (8 callers)
⚡ processPayment — MODIFIED (4 callers)
✨ handleWebhookV2 — ADDED (no dependents)
🔴 HIGH RISK — 8 callers depend on deleted symbol

🔒 Security Audit

The Problem

Your security team asks: "Are there hardcoded secrets? Which files import vulnerable dependencies?" Nobody knows without manually auditing hundreds of files.

With Nomik

Run nomik audit for dependency vulnerabilities with blast radius, and nomik guard for hardcoded secret detection. Both integrate with CI for automated checks.

AI Prompt:"Are there any vulnerabilities or hardcoded secrets?"
Tools used:nm_audit + nm_guard
terminal
$ nomik audit
⚠ lodash@4.17.20 — Prototype Pollution (HIGH)
Blast radius: 12 files import lodash
⚠ axios@0.21.0 — SSRF (MEDIUM)
Blast radius: 3 files import axios
✔ Guard: 0 hardcoded secrets

🧪 Targeted Test Runs

The Problem

After changing a function, you run the entire test suite (20 minutes) because you don't know which tests actually cover the changed code.

With Nomik

Ask Nomik which tests are affected. It traces the graph from the changed symbol to find every test file that imports or transitively depends on it.

AI Prompt:"Which tests should I re-run after changing processPayment?"
Tools used:nm_test_impact
terminal
$ nomik test-impact processPayment
2 test files affected:
src/__tests__/payment.test.ts (direct)
src/__tests__/checkout.test.ts (via route)
✔ Run these instead of the full suite

🏗️ Architecture Review

The Problem

The codebase has grown organically. Nobody knows which modules are tightly coupled, which files are god files, or where the dead code lives.

With Nomik

Run nomik rules for a full architecture health check. It detects dead code, god files, duplicates, circular imports, and evaluates 9 configurable quality rules.

AI Prompt:"How healthy is our codebase architecture?"
Tools used:nm_health + nm_rules + nm_communities
terminal
$ nomik rules
✓ max-dead-code 0/5
✗ max-god-files 4/3
✓ no-circular-imports 0
✓ max-security-issues 0/0
7/9 rules passed
Every use case works today. Install with npm install -g @nomik-ai/cli, run nomik scan ., and start asking your AI assistant these exact questions. Get started in 5 minutes →