mainwhy-change-firewall.md
why-change-firewall.md
Change-FirewalldocsOverview & Architecturewhy-change-firewall.md
2 min read
Overview & ArchitectureCore Problem

Why Raw Diffs Fail in AI Coding

Why line-based git diffs are blind to semantic breakage caused by autonomous coding agents.

AI coding assistants (Cursor, Claude Code, Antigravity, Devin, Copilot) write code in bursts across multiple files. A standard git diff only sees character additions and subtractions (+1 / -1). It has no awareness of syntax trees, method signatures, return type mutations, or downstream callers. Change Firewall acts as an intelligent AST gate between AI code output and your main repository.

A 1-line return type change (e.g., returning { user } instead of user) looks innocent in git diff, but breaks every single client component at runtime.
Analysis VectorTraditional Git DiffChange Firewall AST Engine
Contract MutationsHidden as plain text changeAnalyzed against AST function contracts
Downstream Blast Radius0% caller awarenessReverse import graph traversal up to 3 hops
Merge ReadinessRequires human decipheringDeterministic 0-100 score + blocking gate
AI Self-HealingManual review cyclesStdio JSON-RPC MCP server for autonomous fix
  • 100% offline & local execution (zero token costs, zero telemetry)
  • Instant TypeScript Compiler API AST traversal in milliseconds
  • Full reverse dependency graph mapping across your entire repository