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    <title>DEV Community: Aksh Patel</title>
    <description>The latest articles on DEV Community by Aksh Patel (@aksh_patel_7f6334924c78c9).</description>
    <link>https://dev.to/aksh_patel_7f6334924c78c9</link>
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      <title>DEV Community: Aksh Patel</title>
      <link>https://dev.to/aksh_patel_7f6334924c78c9</link>
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      <title>I built a tool that visualizes any GitHub repo as a living graph</title>
      <dc:creator>Aksh Patel</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 08:12:41 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/aksh_patel_7f6334924c78c9/i-built-a-tool-that-visualizes-any-github-repo-as-a-living-graph-5oh</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/aksh_patel_7f6334924c78c9/i-built-a-tool-that-visualizes-any-github-repo-as-a-living-graph-5oh</guid>
      <description>&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The idea
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I kept getting lost in unfamiliar codebases. Opening a new repo &lt;br&gt;
and trying to understand its architecture by reading file names &lt;br&gt;
felt slow and incomplete. I wanted to &lt;em&gt;see&lt;/em&gt; the structure before &lt;br&gt;
diving into the code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So I built GitVize.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  How it works
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Replace "hub" with "vize" in any GitHub URL:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;github.com/facebook/react → gitvize.com/facebook/react&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You instantly get an interactive visualization of that repo.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  What it shows
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;File Tree Graph&lt;/strong&gt; — the entire repo rendered as a &lt;br&gt;
physics-based force-directed graph. Files are nodes, folder &lt;br&gt;
relationships and code imports are edges. Nodes repel each other &lt;br&gt;
and edges pull connected files together — so the shape of the &lt;br&gt;
graph reflects the actual architecture of the code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Architecture Diagram&lt;/strong&gt; — an AI-generated high-level overview &lt;br&gt;
of the major modules and how they relate to each other.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Contributors Network&lt;/strong&gt; — shows collaboration patterns between &lt;br&gt;
contributors based on which files they've both touched.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dependency Graph&lt;/strong&gt; — parses package.json, requirements.txt, &lt;br&gt;
go.mod and renders the dependency tree.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  The tech
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Next.js 14 App Router&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Pixi.js for WebGL canvas rendering&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;d3-force for physics simulation&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Cytoscape.js for graph layout&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;PostgreSQL for caching&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The file tree graph was the hardest part. Getting thousands of &lt;br&gt;
nodes to simulate physics at 60fps without freezing the browser &lt;br&gt;
required moving the force simulation to a Web Worker and using &lt;br&gt;
Pixi.js for GPU-accelerated rendering instead of SVG.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Try it
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Works on any public GitHub repo — no signup required.&lt;/p&gt;


&lt;div class="crayons-card c-embed text-styles text-styles--secondary"&gt;
    &lt;div class="c-embed__content"&gt;
      &lt;div class="c-embed__body flex items-center justify-between"&gt;
        &lt;a href="https://gitvize.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="c-link fw-bold flex items-center"&gt;
          &lt;span class="mr-2"&gt;gitvize.com&lt;/span&gt;
          

        &lt;/a&gt;
      &lt;/div&gt;
    &lt;/div&gt;
&lt;/div&gt;


&lt;p&gt;Would love feedback from this community, especially on &lt;br&gt;
performance and what features would make this genuinely useful &lt;br&gt;
in your day to day workflow.&lt;/p&gt;

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      <category>showdev</category>
      <category>github</category>
      <category>opensource</category>
      <category>webdev</category>
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