Analysis & detection
What is Architecture Governance?
Enforcing structural rules about which parts of a codebase are allowed to depend on which others.
Architectural intent, such as layering, module boundaries, or 'the domain layer must not import the web layer', is normally documented in a diagram nobody checks. Governance tooling turns those rules into assertions that fail a build when violated.
It is the difference between an architecture that holds for years and one that quietly erodes into a ball of mud, one pragmatic import at a time. Relatively rare as a capability, and generally found in tools focused on long-lived codebases.
Top 8 Architecture Governance tools
Every tool in the directory documented as supporting Architecture Governance, 5 fully, 3 partially, with what its own documentation says.
Support is not the same as parity, since some implementations are narrower in scope, gated to a higher plan tier, or maintained only for existing customers. The note under each tool is what its own documentation describes.
- 1
Auto-generated architectural definitions, subsystem health, cross-service coupling, distributed-monolith detection
- 2
Circular dependencies (CWE-1047) and SOLID violations
- 3
ROUTING.md maps products to code boundaries; APPROVAL_POLICY.md sets per-directory review requirements.
- 4GreptilePR Review
Custom rules enforce architecture patterns (no DB models in controllers, repository pattern); rule-based only
- 5
Derived vs intended architecture, tangles, oversized components, wrong dependency and location issues.
- 6
Cross-repo breaking-change detection and natural-language Custom Checks; no dependency-rule enforcement engine
- 7
Components (path-glob groupings) and Applications aggregate metrics; no dependency or layering rule enforcement
- 8
Cross-repo dependency impact tracing and architecture diagrams in walkthrough; no dependency-rule enforcement
What to look for
- How rules are expressed, and whether they live in version control
- Whether violations fail CI or only appear in a report
- Support for gradually adopting rules on an existing codebase
- Visualisation of current dependencies versus intended structure
Related terms
FAQ
What is Architecture Governance?
Enforcing structural rules about which parts of a codebase are allowed to depend on which others.
How many tools support Architecture Governance?
8 of the 20 tools tracked in this directory support Architecture Governance, 5 fully and 3 partially, including CodeScene, Corgea, Cursor (Bugbot), Greptile, SonarQube. Support is not the same as parity, since some implementations are narrower in scope, gated to a higher plan tier, or maintained only for existing customers. The note under each tool is what its own documentation describes.
What should you look for in Architecture Governance?
How rules are expressed, and whether they live in version control. Whether violations fail CI or only appear in a report. Support for gradually adopting rules on an existing codebase. Visualisation of current dependencies versus intended structure.