indent-complexity

A language-agnostic code complexity analyzer. Works on any language by measuring indentation depth.

Usage

``bash
npm install indent-complexity
`

`typescript
import { analyzeComplexity, analyzeDiffComplexity } from 'indent-complexity';

// Pass any code snippet, function of complete file to get complexity assessment:
const codeComplexity = analyzeComplexity(codeSnippet);
console.log(codeComplexity.score);

// Also supports git diff output to evaluate complexity for added lines (by default):
const diffComplexity = analyzeDiffComplexity(gitDiff);
console.log(diffComplexity.score);
`

The Score

Unfortunately none of the researchers suggests a single-metric similar to how Cyclomatic and Cognitive complexity work. So I decided to suggest one:

`
Σ(depth²) / lineCount
`

I chose depth squared weighting because:

- Mirrors cognitive complexity principles (nested code is harder to understand)
- Normalized by line count for cross-file comparison
- Shallow-but-wide code scores low; deep code scores high

Default thresholds:

| Level | Score |
| -------- | ------ |
| low | < 4 |
| medium | 4 - 10 |
| high | ≥ 10 |

verbose: true returns all research-backed metrics for you to experiment and explore:

| Metric | Description |
| ---------------- | -------------------------------------------- |
| variance | Correlates with McCabe cyclomatic complexity |
| max | Deepest nesting level |
| mean | Average depth per line |
| lineCount | Lines analyzed (excluding comments/blanks) |
| depthHistogram` | Distribution of depths |

License

MIT