User Guide¶

This guide covers everything you need to know to use CytoScnPy effectively.

Quick Start¶

Run analysis on your current directory:

cytoscnpy . --secrets --danger --quality

Features & Usage¶

Dead Code Detection¶

CytoScnPy statically analyzes your code to find unused symbols. It detects:

• Functions & Classes: Definitions that are never called.
• Methods: Cascading detection (if a class is unused, its methods are too).
• Imports: Unused import statements.
• Variables: Local variables assigned but never read.

Installation¶

Linux / macOS:

# Install
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djinn09/CytoScnPy/main/install.sh | bash

Windows (PowerShell):

# Install
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/djinn09/CytoScnPy/main/install.ps1 | iex

Framework Support: Automatically detects usage in Flask routes, Django views, FastAPI endpoints, and Pydantic models.

Security Analysis¶

Enable with --secrets and --danger.

Secret Scanning: Finds hardcoded secrets (API keys, tokens) using regex and entropy analysis. Dangerous Code: Detects patterns known to cause vulnerabilities (SQLi, XSS, RCE, etc.).

For detailed vulnerability rules (CSP-Dxxx), see the Dangerous Code Rules Index or the general Security Analysis overview.

Code Quality Metrics¶

Enable with --quality.

• Cyclomatic Complexity (CC): Measures code branching.
• Maintainability Index (MI): 0-100 score (higher is better).
• Halstead Metrics: Algorithmic complexity.

For a full list of quality rules and their standard IDs (B006, E722, etc.), see the Code Quality Rules reference. Note: Per-rule pages exist only for Best Practices and Performance; maintainability rules are summarized in the index.

Rule Index¶

Clone Detection¶

Finds duplicate or near-duplicate code blocks (Type-1, Type-2, and Type-3 clones).

cytoscnpy . --clones --clone-similarity 0.8

• Type-1: Exact copies (identical code).
• Type-2: Syntactically identical (variable renaming).
• Type-3: Near-miss clones (small edits/additions).

Options:

• --clone-similarity <0.0-1.0>: Minimum similarity threshold. Default is 0.8 (80% similarity). Lower values find more matches but may increase false positives.

Performance: Clone detection is computationally intensive for very large codebases.

Auto-Fix¶

Remove dead code automatically.

1. Preview: cytoscnpy . --fix
2. Apply: cytoscnpy . --fix --apply

HTML Reports¶

Generate interactive, self-contained HTML reports for easier navigation of findings.

cytoscnpy . --html --secrets --danger

(Note: --html automatically enables --quality but strictly security scans need explicit flags).

Features:

• Dashboard: High-level summary of issues.
• Search: Interactive search across all findings.
• Filtering: Filter by severity, category, or file.
• Source View: Clickable file links with line numbers.

When to use HTML vs JSON:

• Use HTML for human review and team sharing.
• Use JSON (--json) for CI/CD pipelines and automated processing.

CI/CD Integration¶

CytoScnPy is designed to work seamlessly with modern CI/CD pipelines. Using the --root flag and specific --format options, you can integrate analysis results directly into your build process.

[!IMPORTANT] Always use --root . (or your project path) in CI/CD. This ensures that:

1. Absolute paths are correctly normalized to relative paths in reports.
2. Security containment boundaries are correctly established.
3. Fingerprints (for GitLab/GitHub) remain stable across different build runners.

GitLab Code Quality¶

Generate a report that GitLab can display directly in Merge Requests.

# .gitlab-ci.yml
code_quality:
  stage: test
  image: python:3.9
  script:
    - pip install cytoscnpy
    - cytoscnpy --root . --format gitlab --danger --secrets > gl-code-quality-report.json
  artifacts:
    reports:
      codequality: gl-code-quality-report.json

GitHub Actions¶

Generate inline annotations for your Pull Requests.

# .github/workflows/scan.yml
jobs:
  scan:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Install CytoScnPy
        run: pip install cytoscnpy
      - name: Run Scan
        run: cytoscnpy --root . --format github --danger --secrets

SARIF (GitHub Security / GitLab Security)¶

Export results in the standard Static Analysis Results Interchange Format (SARIF).

cytoscnpy --root . --format sarif --danger > results.sarif

JUnit XML¶

Integration with test runners and CI platforms that support JUnit (Azure DevOps, Jenkins).

cytoscnpy --root . --format junit --quality > test-results.xml

⚓ Pre-commit Hooks¶

⚙️ Configuration¶

CytoScnPy supports configuration via:

1. .cytoscnpy.toml (Project root)
2. pyproject.toml (Scanning under [tool.cytoscnpy])

You can scaffold a default config with:

cytoscnpy init

Option 1: .cytoscnpy.toml¶

[cytoscnpy]
confidence = 60
exclude_folders = ["venv", "build", "dist"]
include_folders = ["src"]
include_tests = false
secrets = true
danger = true
quality = true
include_ipynb = false

# CI/CD Gates (Fail if exceeded)
fail_threshold = 5.0   # >5% unused code
max_complexity = 15    # Function CC > 15
min_mi = 40.0         # MI < 40

Option 2: pyproject.toml¶

[tool.cytoscnpy]
confidence = 60
exclude_folders = ["venv", "build", "dist"]
include_folders = ["src"]
include_tests = false
secrets = true
danger = true
quality = true

# CI/CD Gates
fail_threshold = 5.0
max_complexity = 15
min_mi = 40.0

Advanced Config (Security)¶

Use nested tables to customize secret scanning and taint analysis:

[cytoscnpy.secrets_config]
entropy_threshold = 4.5
min_length = 16
entropy_enabled = true
scan_comments = true
skip_docstrings = false
min_score = 50
suspicious_names = ["db_password", "oauth_token"]

[[cytoscnpy.secrets_config.patterns]]
name = "Slack Token"
regex = "xox[baprs]-([0-9a-zA-Z]{10,48})"
severity = "HIGH"

[cytoscnpy.danger_config]
enable_taint = true
severity_threshold = "LOW" # LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, CRITICAL
excluded_rules = ["CSP-D101"]
custom_sources = ["mylib.get_input"]
custom_sinks = ["mylib.exec"]

CLI Reference¶

For a complete reference, see docs/CLI.md.

cytoscnpy [PATHS]... [OPTIONS]

Core Options¶

Output Formatting¶

Filtering¶

CI/CD Quality Gates¶

CytoScnPy can enforce quality standards by exiting with code 1:

Subcommands¶

CytoScnPy has specialized subcommands for specific metrics.

hal - Halstead Metrics¶

cytoscnpy hal . --functions

Calculates Halstead complexity metrics.

• --functions: Compute at function level.

files - Per-File Metrics¶

cytoscnpy files . --json

Shows detailed metrics table for each file.

cc - Cyclomatic Complexity¶

cytoscnpy cc . --min-rank C --show-complexity

Calculates McCabe complexity.

• --show-complexity: Show score.
• --min-rank <A-F>: Filter by rank (A=Simple ... F=Critical).
• --max-complexity <N>: Fail if complexity > N.

mi - Maintainability Index¶

cytoscnpy mi . --show --average

Calculates Maintainability Index (0-100).

• --show: Show values.
• --fail-threshold <N>: Fail if MI < N.

Additional Quality Options¶

raw - Raw Metrics¶

cytoscnpy raw . --json

Calculates LOC, SLOC, Comments, Blank lines.

stats - Project Statistics¶

cytoscnpy stats . --all

Runs full analysis (secrets, danger, quality) and prints summary statistics.

Options:

• --all (-a): Enable all scanners (secrets, danger, quality).
• --secrets (-s): Enable secret scanning.
• --danger (-d): Enable danger/taint analysis.
• --quality (-q): Enable quality analysis.
• --exclude-folder <DIR>: Exclude specific folders from stats analysis.
• --json: Output as JSON.
• --output <FILE> (-o): Save report to file.

mcp-server - MCP Integration¶

cytoscnpy mcp-server

Starts the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for integration with AI assistants (Claude Desktop, Cursor, GitHub Copilot).

Troubleshooting¶

Common Issues¶

1. "Too many open files" error

• Limit parallelization or exclude large directories (node_modules, .git).

2. False Positives

• Use inline comments to suppress findings on a specific line:

Examples:

def mutable_default(arg=[]):  # noqa
    pass

x = [1, 2] == None # noqa: CSP-L003
for x in items:  # noqa: CSP-P003
    out += x
y = api_key  # pragma: no cytoscnpy

• For bulk ignores, use the .cytoscnpy.toml configuration file's ignore list. For per-file rule scopes, add a [tool.cytoscnpy.per-file-ignores] table (or per-file-ignores inside .cytoscnpy.toml) with glob keys mapped to rule lists:

[tool.cytoscnpy.per-file-ignores]
"tests/*" = ["S101"]       # Allow assert statements in tests
"__init__.py" = ["F401"]   # Allow unused imports in __init__.py
"migrations/*" = ["E501"]  # Allow long lines in migrations

3. Performance is slow

• Check if large files or build artifacts are being scanned. Use --exclude-folder.
• Clone detection is slower than standard analysis.

4. "Missing integrity" finding

• Security check requires SRI hashes for external scripts. Add integrity="..." to your HTML.

Links¶

• PyPI: pypi.org/project/cytoscnpy
• VS Code Extension: Visual Studio Marketplace
• GitHub Repository: github.com/djinn09/CytoScnPy