Analyze Yii2 Project Workflow

Purpose

Comprehensive workflow for analyzing legacy Yii2 projects to extract business logic, understand architecture, and plan modernization.

When to Use

• ✅ User provides Yii2 codebase for analysis
• ✅ Planning Yii2 → NestJS/Modern framework migration
• ✅ Need to understand undocumented Yii2 project
• ✅ Extracting business requirements from Yii2 code
• ✅ Technical debt assessment of Yii2 application

Prerequisites

Infrastructure Check

codecompass health

Verify:

• ✅ Weaviate running (localhost:8081)
• ✅ Ollama running (localhost:11434)
• ✅ PostgreSQL running (localhost:5433)

Project Requirements

• Yii2 project directory accessible
• vendor/ directory present (run composer install if missing)
• Read permissions on all files

Step-by-Step Workflow

Phase 1: Initial Scan (Quick Overview)

Step 1.1: Run Yii2 Analyzer

codecompass analyze:yii2 <path-to-yii2-project>

What this does:

• Scans directory structure
• Detects Yii2 version
• Identifies conventions (controllers, models, views)
• Extracts routing patterns
• Maps database migrations

Expected output:

• Framework version
• Directory structure validation
• Controller/Model counts
• Migration history

Step 1.2: Validate Results Check for:

• ❌ Missing vendor/ → Run composer install
• ❌ Old Yii2 version (<2.0.40) → Check compatibility notes in docs/YII2_QUICK_REFERENCE.md
• ❌ Non-standard structure → May need manual configuration

Phase 2: Business Capability Extraction

Step 2.1: Extract Controllers → Capabilities

# Analyzer automatically extracts business capabilities from controllers

What this maps:

Controller → Business Capability
├── UserController → User Management
├── OrderController → Order Processing
├── PaymentController → Payment Handling
└── ReportController → Reporting & Analytics

Step 2.2: Extract Models → Domain Entities Identifies:

• ActiveRecord models → Database entities
• Validation rules → Business rules
• Relationships → Domain model connections

Step 2.3: Extract Migrations → Data Model Evolution Traces:

• Schema changes over time
• Business logic embedded in migrations
• Data transformation patterns

Phase 3: Dependency Analysis

Step 3.1: Analyze Class Dependencies Uses: AstAnalyzerService for PHP parsing

Maps:

• Tight coupling (classes depending on many others)
• Circular dependencies (refactoring red flags)
• Inheritance hierarchies
• Service dependencies

Step 3.2: Identify Core vs Supporting Logic Categorizes:

• Core Domain: Business-critical logic (preserve carefully)
• Supporting: Infrastructure, utilities (can be replaced)
• Generic: Framework boilerplate (discard in migration)

Phase 4: Requirements Extraction

Step 4.1: Run Requirements Extractor

codecompass requirements:extract --project-id <yii2-project-id>

Extracts:

• Validation rules from models → Business constraints
• Controller actions → Use cases
• RBAC rules (if present) → Authorization requirements
• Database constraints → Data integrity rules

Step 4.2: Generate Documentation Outputs:

• Business capability map (Markdown)
• Domain model diagram (Mermaid)
• Use case catalog
• Data dictionary

Phase 5: Semantic Indexing (Optional but Recommended)

Step 5.1: Index Codebase

codecompass batch:index <path-to-yii2-project>

Why:

• Enables semantic search for "business logic for payment processing"
• Cross-file pattern discovery
• Similar code detection
• Natural language queries

Step 5.2: Verify Indexing

curl http://localhost:8081/v1/schema
# Check for CodeContext or AtlasCode collection

Step 5.3: Test Semantic Search

codecompass search:semantic "validation rules for customer registration"

Should return: User model validators, controller logic, related code

Phase 6: Migration Planning

Step 6.1: Identify Migration Complexity Assess:

• Low complexity: CRUD operations, standard patterns
• Medium complexity: Custom workflows, business rules
• High complexity: Legacy integrations, undocumented logic

Step 6.2: Prioritize by Business Value Map:

Business Capability → Migration Priority
├── Core Revenue Generating → HIGH (do first, carefully)
├── Customer-Facing → MEDIUM (visible impact)
└── Internal Tools → LOW (can defer)

Step 6.3: Generate Migration Roadmap Structure:

1. Infrastructure setup (NestJS, TypeORM, etc.)
2. Domain models (migrate ActiveRecords → TypeORM entities)
3. Core business logic (preserve carefully)
4. API layer (REST/GraphQL endpoints)
5. Background jobs (if using Yii2 queue)
6. Testing & validation

Common Patterns to Look For

Yii2 Controller Patterns

// CRUD pattern
public function actionIndex() // → LIST endpoint
public function actionView($id) // → GET/:id endpoint
public function actionCreate() // → POST endpoint
public function actionUpdate($id) // → PUT/:id endpoint
public function actionDelete($id) // → DELETE/:id endpoint

Maps to NestJS:

@Controller('users')
export class UsersController {
  @Get() findAll()
  @Get(':id') findOne()
  @Post() create()
  @Put(':id') update()
  @Delete(':id') remove()
}

Yii2 Model Patterns

// Validation rules
public function rules() {
  return [
    [['email'], 'required'],
    [['email'], 'email'],
  ];
}

Maps to NestJS DTO:

export class CreateUserDto {
  @IsNotEmpty()
  @IsEmail()
  email: string;
}

Yii2 Database Patterns

// ActiveRecord query
$users = User::find()
  ->where(['status' => User::STATUS_ACTIVE])
  ->orderBy('created_at DESC')
  ->all();

Maps to TypeORM:

const users = await this.userRepository.find({
  where: { status: UserStatus.ACTIVE },
  order: { createdAt: 'DESC' },
});

Output Artifacts

1. Architecture Diagram (Mermaid)

graph TD
  Controller[Controllers] --> Service[Business Logic]
  Service --> Model[ActiveRecord Models]
  Model --> DB[(Database)]
  Controller --> View[Views]

2. Business Capability Map

## Core Capabilities
- User Management (UserController, User model)
- Order Processing (OrderController, Order/OrderItem models)
- Payment Handling (PaymentController, Payment model)

## Supporting Capabilities
- Reporting (ReportController)
- Notifications (EmailService)

3. Migration Checklist

• Set up NestJS project structure
• Migrate database schema (Yii2 migrations → TypeORM migrations)
• Port models (ActiveRecord → TypeORM entities)
• Reimplement business logic (preserve rules!)
• Create API endpoints (REST/GraphQL)
• Port authentication/authorization
• Migrate background jobs
• Integration testing
• Performance testing
• Gradual rollout

Common Issues & Solutions

Issue 1: Cannot find controllers

Symptom: Analyzer reports 0 controllers Cause: Non-standard directory structure Solution: Check @app alias configuration in Yii2, adjust paths

Issue 2: Missing database schema

Symptom: Cannot extract models properly Cause: Database not accessible or migrations not run Solution: Ensure database connection configured, run pending migrations

Issue 3: Circular dependencies detected

Symptom: Dependency graph shows circular references Meaning: Code smell - tight coupling between modules Action: Plan refactoring to break cycles during migration

Issue 4: Undocumented business rules

Symptom: Complex logic in controllers with no comments Action:

1. Use semantic search to find similar patterns
2. Interview original developers if available
3. Write tests to capture behavior before migration
4. Document assumptions in requirements docs

Best Practices

✅ Do

• Run full analysis before planning migration
• Extract ALL business rules (even implicit ones)
• Document assumptions and unknowns
• Test semantic search to validate indexing
• Create comprehensive capability map
• Prioritize by business value, not technical ease

❌ Don't

• Skip dependency analysis (will bite you later)
• Assume standard Yii2 patterns everywhere
• Ignore validation rules (they're business requirements!)
• Start coding before understanding full architecture
• Migrate everything at once (strangler fig pattern instead)

Related Skills

• extract-requirements.md - For detailed requirements extraction
• semantic-search.md - For code exploration
• software-architect.md - For architecture perspective

Related Modules

From .ai/capabilities.json:

• yii2-analyzer - Main analysis module
• ast-analyzer - PHP parsing
• database-analyzer - Schema extraction
• requirements - Business rules extraction
• business-analyzer - Capability mapping

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Remember: The goal is not just to understand the code, but to preserve the business knowledge embedded in it.