When I first started developing tools for source code auditing, my primary need was to track tainted data flows through complex codebases during manual code reviews. Initially, I turned to Tree-Sitter, which proved excellent for single-file analysis with its fast, incremental parsing capabilities. However, as I scaled to larger codebases with complex cross-file dependencies and data flows, Tree-Sitter’s AST-only approach became limiting. The challenge wasn’t just parsing individual files. It was understanding how data flows between functions, across modules, and through various execution paths during thorough manual security assessments.
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