papyrus-impact

papyrus-impact

Traverse the rationale graph outward from a starting need, following typed edges in both directions up to a depth limit. Returns every reachable need with its distance and the path of edge types taken.

Atomicity

• (a) Indivisible: one BFS over the merged internal + external graph, read-only
• (b) Input: need_id, depth, optional link_types filter. Output: ordered list of hits (id, distance, path)
• (c) Objective reward: on a fixture with known edges, returned id set equals expected set
• (d) Reusable: change-request review, decision drill-down, risk surface analysis
• (e) No interference: read-only, no shared state

Input / Output

input:
  need_id:    starting need id (must exist in chain or external index)
  depth:      max hops from start (default 3)
  link_types: optional list filter (relates, supports, ...); empty = all types
              CLI: pass --link-type repeatedly (one per type)
output:
  stdout:  lines of "[<distance-or-*>] <id>[ [<kind>]] — <title>  (<edge/edge/...>)"
           ordered by BFS discovery
  exit:    0 on success; non-zero if start id not found

Success criterion

Given fixture where DEC_a --relates--> REQ_b --depends--> DEC_c:

papyrus impact DEC_a --depth 2 | grep -c "^"

Returns 3 (DEC_a at distance 0, REQ_b at 1, DEC_c at 2).

Workflow

CLI:

papyrus impact <need_id> --depth <N> [--link-type relates --link-type supports]

MCP tool memory_impact:

{"need_id": "REQ_auth", "depth": 2}

If the configured external pharaoh workspace is unavailable, the CLI raises a ClickException; when it loads, external nodes are merged into the graph (local nodes win on id collision).

Composition examples

Change-request review:

1. Change request touches REQ_x
2. papyrus-impact REQ_x --depth 2 surfaces connected DECs and RISKs
3. Reviewer inspects each hit via papyrus-drill

Decision drill-down:

1. papyrus-drill DEC_y shows the decision itself
2. papyrus-impact DEC_y --depth 1 shows direct requirements it relates to and risks it raised

Risk surface:

1. papyrus-query --type risk lists all risks
2. For each: papyrus-impact RISK_z shows what requirements it affects

See also

• shared/impact-analysis.md — semantics of the bidirectional graph walk
• papyrus-link — primitive that builds the graph
• papyrus-trace — focused variant for supersession chains
• papyrus-drill — natural follow-up to inspect any hit