Zombie Code

Kind: anti-pattern

Layer: Enforcement Core

Aliases: Dead Code

Record: architecture:zombie-code

Severity: discouraged

Scope: architecture_evolution

Formed by: Leave unreachable, unused, or disabled code in the system where it keeps misleading the developer and the model, and can be reactivated by accident.

Canonical: Ontology

A defect in which unreachable or disabled code stays in the system and misleads the developer and the model.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Lava Flow and before Temporal Coupling.

Refactored by

• Delete After Evidence
• Archive Reference
• Restrict Exports
• Dead Code Check

Severity

• discouraged

Category

• Anti-patterns

Force

• Architecture evolution

Detected by

• codemods/validators/field.validator.ts
• rules/eslint/closure-allowlist-entries-are-wired.eslint.rule.ts
• rules/eslint/closure-no-reachable-dead-exports.eslint.rule.ts
• rules/eslint/closure-no-unreachable-file.eslint.rule.ts
• rules/eslint/closure-register-needs-consumer.eslint.rule.ts
• rules/eslint/closure-transitive-liveness.eslint.rule.ts

Negated by

• Evolutionary Architecture

Linked from

• Fail at the boundary
• Never and always
• Anti-patterns
• Architecture Review / Evolution / Governance Artifacts
• Architecture Review Evolution Governance
• Core Modular Design
• Severity levels
• The forces