As our projects grow more complex and distributed, development teams face a familiar challenge: keeping track of dependencies across dozens of repositories, services, libraries, and internal modules.
Microservices, layered architectures, and ever-changing codebases make it difficult to maintain full visibility. And without visibility, the risk of unexpected breakages multiplies.
At SCAND, we knew this problem too well. After years of managing large-scale, multi-repo enterprise solutions, we decided to build a tool that would bring clarity back into the development workflow.
Today, we’re excited to introduce TheWalkingDep, a lightweight yet powerful solution for tracking, visualizing, and understanding code dependencies for Java projects.
What Is TheWalkingDep?
TheWalkingDep is a dependency management and visualization tool with integration with VisualStudio Code and IntellijIDEA. It is designed to help teams understand how different components of their system relate to one another.
In practice, TheWalkingDep operates on already-built artifacts like JAR files, regardless of their source.
Still, it delivers the greatest impact in large, distributed repositories. It helps track changes across many codebases, highlights potentially risky updates, and keeps dependency chains transparent even in very complex projects.
We built it for developers, DevOps engineers, tech leads, and anyone dealing with multi-layered codebases who needs reliable insight into how one change affects the rest of the system.
The Key Problems TheWalkingDep Solves
Before creating TheWalkingDep, we looked closely at the issues development teams face when working with large or distributed codebases.
Despite using modern tools and established workflows, many teams still lose track of how different modules depend on one another, where changes create risks, and why certain updates lead to unexpected breakages.
These recurring challenges highlighted the need for a clearer, more automated way to understand and manage dependencies.
1. Limited Visibility Across Repositories
In many organizations, dependencies live across several Git repositories. Teams often rely on tribal knowledge or outdated documentation to understand relationships between modules.
TheWalkingDep takes the guesswork out of dependency management by providing a visual and always-up-to-date dependency graph for the artifacts you create. It allows you to navigate the graph, allowing you to see which JAR files are required and which version, allowing you to see all explicit and non-explicit dependencies.
2. Hidden Breaking Changes
A seemingly harmless update in one service can silently break another one. When teams only discover the issue during QA—or worse, after deployment—it leads to delayed releases and production incidents. TheWalkingDep monitors these updates and highlights changes that may introduce risk.
3. Managing Large, Distributed Codebases
Modern systems consist of many moving parts. When multiple developers contribute simultaneously, the chances of missing a dependency or updating the wrong module increase. Our tool helps detect inconsistencies before they escalate.
Core Features of TheWalkingDep
To address the challenges of dependency visibility and risk management, we equipped TheWalkingDep with a set of focused, developer-friendly features.
Dependency Visualization: The tool presents dependencies in a clear, graph-based layout. You can instantly see how modules are connected and where bottlenecks or risks may lie.
Automated Dependency Tracking: TheWalkingDep scans repositories and tracks dependency changes continuously. No manual updates, no outdated diagrams.
Impact Analysis: Every change is evaluated. Developers can immediately see which modules might be affected before merging or deploying the update.
Lightweight Setup: We made installation straightforward and minimally invasive. TheWalkingDep integrates with your current IDE without requiring heavy configuration.
How TheWalkingDep Improves Your Development Workflow
By giving teams clear insight into how modules depend on one another, TheWalkingDep helps eliminate many of the issues that traditionally slow down development. With early detection of breaking changes, teams experience fewer production incidents and avoid last-minute surprises caused by hidden dependencies.
Shared visibility across repositories also strengthens collaboration: when everyone sees the same dependency structure, communication becomes smoother and misunderstandings decrease.
This clarity extends to the review process as well. Code reviewers immediately understand how a change affects related components, allowing them to make decisions faster and with more confidence.
As a result, release cycles become far more predictable. With fewer blockers and clearer dependency paths, teams can plan and deploy updates in a controlled, stable, and consistent way.
Use Cases
TheWalkingDep is versatile enough to support a wide range of development scenarios. Whether you’re managing microservices, coordinating multiple repositories, modernizing legacy systems, or working in a large enterprise environment, the tool provides actionable insights that make dependency management simpler and more reliable.
1. Microservices Architectures
Perfect for teams dealing with dozens of interconnected services, where a single update can echo through the system.
2. Multi-Repository Development
TheWalkingDep helps centralize knowledge that would otherwise be scattered across repos and teams.
3. Legacy Modernization
When untangling old systems, dependency clarity is essential. The tool helps teams gradually modernize without breaking mission-critical functionality.
4. Large Enterprise Teams
Distributed teams need accurate, shared dependency visibility—and TheWalkingDep provides it without friction.
Why We Built TheWalkingDep at SCAND
For years, we’ve been developing and maintaining complex platforms for clients in finance, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and telecom. These projects often involve multi-module architectures where a change in one component can create a chain reaction.
We needed a tool that could:
Map dependencies automatically
Highlight breaking changes early
Integrate with CI/CD pipelines
Support large-scale development with ease
TheWalkingDep was born from this need, and after using it internally with great success, we decided it was time to share it with the developer community.
Roadmap & Future Enhancements
We’re actively working on several new features, including:
Advanced analytics dashboards
Customizable visual layouts
Deeper CI/CD integrations
Suggestions for fixing dependency conflicts
Expanded language and framework support
Our goal is to make TheWalkingDep an indispensable part of modern development workflows.
Conclusion
Dependency management shouldn’t feel like detective work. With TheWalkingDep, we aim to bring simplicity, clarity, and control back to development teams working on large or fast-changing systems.
By giving teams full visibility and early warnings about breaking changes, the tool helps you build more resilient software, and ship with greater confidence.
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