An Event-Driven Tool for Context-Aware Code Smell Detection Using SmellDSL

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Viegas, Matheus dos Santos, Santos, Adrian Gabriel Keller dos, Farias, Kleinner, da Silva, Robson Keemps
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Viegas, Matheus dos Santos
Santos, Adrian Gabriel Keller dos
Farias, Kleinner
da Silva, Robson Keemps
author_facet Viegas, Matheus dos Santos
Santos, Adrian Gabriel Keller dos
Farias, Kleinner
da Silva, Robson Keemps
contents Code smells signal violations of design principles that degrade the internal quality of evolving software systems. Although many tools detect such anomalies using static metrics, they often ignore the development context in which smells arise and are resolved. This limitation can lead to misleading warnings and weak support for refactoring decisions. To address this problem, we present SmellHunter, a context-aware tool that interprets scripts written in the SmellDSL domain-specific language to detect and contextualize code smells. SmellHunter integrates static code metrics with contextual information (such as team characteristics, project stage, and geographic metadata) to produce richer, more actionable analyses. The tool adopts an event-driven architecture in which a service bus orchestrates validation, interpretation, and persistence services through asynchronous events. This architecture enables scalable analysis while minimizing disruption to developers' workflows. SmellHunter is integrated into the Eclipse development environment via a dedicated plugin and provides aggregated insights via a mobile application, allowing developers to explore smell occurrences by type, severity, and location. By linking smell detection with contextual data and collaborative visualization, SmellHunter supports developers acting as smell hunters, helping teams identify recurring quality issues emerging from a particular location and assign refactoring tasks to developers with relevant expertise. We describe the architecture of SmellHunter, the interpretation process of SmellDSL scripts, and the integration of contextual data to support more informed refactoring decisions in modern software development environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_20675
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Event-Driven Tool for Context-Aware Code Smell Detection Using SmellDSL
Viegas, Matheus dos Santos
Santos, Adrian Gabriel Keller dos
Farias, Kleinner
da Silva, Robson Keemps
Software Engineering
Code smells signal violations of design principles that degrade the internal quality of evolving software systems. Although many tools detect such anomalies using static metrics, they often ignore the development context in which smells arise and are resolved. This limitation can lead to misleading warnings and weak support for refactoring decisions. To address this problem, we present SmellHunter, a context-aware tool that interprets scripts written in the SmellDSL domain-specific language to detect and contextualize code smells. SmellHunter integrates static code metrics with contextual information (such as team characteristics, project stage, and geographic metadata) to produce richer, more actionable analyses. The tool adopts an event-driven architecture in which a service bus orchestrates validation, interpretation, and persistence services through asynchronous events. This architecture enables scalable analysis while minimizing disruption to developers' workflows. SmellHunter is integrated into the Eclipse development environment via a dedicated plugin and provides aggregated insights via a mobile application, allowing developers to explore smell occurrences by type, severity, and location. By linking smell detection with contextual data and collaborative visualization, SmellHunter supports developers acting as smell hunters, helping teams identify recurring quality issues emerging from a particular location and assign refactoring tasks to developers with relevant expertise. We describe the architecture of SmellHunter, the interpretation process of SmellDSL scripts, and the integration of contextual data to support more informed refactoring decisions in modern software development environments.
title An Event-Driven Tool for Context-Aware Code Smell Detection Using SmellDSL
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20675