DebtBomb is an innovative technical debt enforcement tool designed to enhance code quality by ensuring that temporary code changes are managed effectively. By scanning source code comments for time-sensitive “debt bombs,” DebtBomb triggers a failure in the Continuous Integration (CI) process when these temporary fixes exceed their established expiry date.

Key Features

• Temporary Code with Deadlines: DebtBomb empowers teams to implement temporary solutions with an enforceable deadline, ensuring that such code is actively monitored and addressed.
• Visibility and Ownership: It promotes a culture of accountability within teams by requiring that temporary code is visible and owned, significantly reducing the risk of code rot.

Practical Use

The tool identifies common comments in codebases, such as TODO and FIXME, which often go ignored. With DebtBomb, these comments can be transformed into actionable items with specific time limits.

Usage Examples

• Enforce Debt Checks in CI:

  debtbomb check
  

  This command will fail with an exit code 1 if any debt bomb is found to be expired.

• Warnings Before Expiry:

  debtbomb check --warn-in-days 7
  

  This command warns developers of upcoming expirations without interrupting ongoing releases.

• List Current Debt:

  debtbomb list
  debtbomb list --expired
  debtbomb list --json
  

Comment Syntax

DebtBomb recognizes comments that contain the @debtbomb directive, making it compatible with any programming language. Supported comment styles include:

• //
• #
• --
• /* */

Examples:

• Single-line Comment:

  // @debtbomb(expire=2026-02-10, owner=pricing, ticket=JIRA-123)
  

• Multi-line Comment:

  // @debtbomb
  //   expire: 2026-02-10
  //   owner: pricing
  //   ticket: JIRA-123
  //   reason: Temporary surge override
  

Customization

DebtBomb allows configurations such as excluding specific files or directories from scanning using a .debtbombignore file, ensuring it only targets relevant source files while maintaining fast performance even in large repositories.