See what rests on a Decision before you replace it

You want to drop "every API response carries a request id" (D21). It feels like a small thing. Before you write the replacement, you ask Smeldr what rests on D21.

Five other items rest on it, and two of them are still waiting for someone. That is a different job from the one you had in mind. You open the two that are waiting, decide what each of them becomes, and then replace D21.

The count follows the whole chain: what rests on D21, what rests on those, and so on, split into open and closed. It never counts an item you are not allowed to see. If the chain is very long, it stops after 1,000 items and says "at least 1,000" instead of a number it has not finished counting.

When you want the path itself, ask for the trace. It shows one layer at a time, up to ten steps, and if it is cut off it tells you where.

Without the count you would have found them one at a time over the next months, each time wondering why something had stopped making sense.

Names and numbers are made up. The steps are what Smeldr does. Read the other stories in How Smeldr works in practice.