CrossWayAI README

A VS Code extension that visualizes code dependencies for Progress OpenEdge ABL projects, to help developers understand project structure, navigate relationships between files and modules, and identify coupling and architectural issues. Visualize file, module, and symbol dependencies in VS Code with AI-assisted analysis. The extension uses AI to generate and update interactive dependency graphs, enabling faster code comprehension, refactoring, and architectural insights.

Features

• Automated Project Analysis: Scans your OpenEdge ABL project to discover all source files (.p, .w, .cls, .i).
• Windows/Unix support: Supports both types of operation systems VSCode workspaces
• Single/Multi-Project Workspace Support: Supports workspaces containing either single or multiple OpenEdge projects.
• Dependency Mapping: Triggers a deep analysis using an underlying ABL script to generate a dependency map.
• Proparse Support Integrated Proparse support to enable more complex code analysis in later releases
• Context Menu Integration: Access diagram generation commands directly from the editor or explorer context menus for quick analysis.
• AI support integration: Several Diagram functionalities are handled via existing AI tooling (vscode / html): Table Relations Diagram, node functional description etc.
• Multiple Diagram Types: Provides commands to generate various diagrams to visualize your application's architecture, including:
  • Impact Diagram
  • Include Diagram
  • Interface Diagram
  • Inheritance Diagram
  • Call Diagram
  • Package Diagram
  • Instance Chain Diagram
  • Property Access Diagram
  • Table Relations Diagram

Requirements

• Progress OpenEdge 11.7 - 12.8 installation.
• OpenEdge ABL VS Code extension (installed automatically with CrossWayAI)
• Java JDK installation (needed by Proparse to run)
• Workspace configuration file (.code-workspace) present in the workspace root folder, next to the workspace project folders

AI Configuration

In order to use the integrated AI support you need to set the AI enabled = true (disabled by default) CrossWayAI supports both external AI providers (OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions APIs) and VS Code Language Models. The HTTP provider does not support native provider APIs with different endpoint shapes, such as Anthropic Claude's /v1/messages, unless they are exposed through an OpenAI-compatible proxy.

CrossWayAI AI features are grounded in the plain text files in your workspace. For example, AI node summaries read the selected ABL source file (.p, .w, .cls, or .i) as text and send it directly to the configured AI provider for a functional summary. The Table Relations Diagram works differently: it hands a prompt to the VS Code Chat agent, which reads the dumped .df schema text created by CrossWayAI: Dump All DB Definitions. That schema text is therefore processed by whichever model backs VS Code Chat, which may not be the provider configured for CrossWayAI. Either way, providing the actual source and schema text helps the AI produce more precise summaries and diagrams.

By enabling and using AI features, you are responsible for deciding whether your source code, schema files, database metadata, and other workspace content may be sent to the configured AI provider. CrossWayAI does not control how external AI providers or VS Code language models process, store, retain, train on, or secure that data. Review your provider's terms, privacy policy, and your organization's security rules before enabling AI features. Do not use AI features with confidential, regulated, customer-owned, or otherwise sensitive code or data unless you are authorized to share that content with the configured AI service.

For detailed setup instructions, see: AI Configuration Guide

Java Configuration

To use Proparse support, you need to have a correctly installed and configured JDK in the PATH environment variable. This is mandatory for the Proparse functionalities to be available.

Before You Start

Important: CrossWayAI requires your ABL sources to be compiled. It reads .xref files produced by the OpenEdge ABL extension's background builder — without them, no dependency data will be available.

Complete the OpenEdge ABL extension setup first and make sure your project compiles successfully before running CrossWayAI.

CrossWayAI watches generated .xref files after the dependency map is available. The CrossWayAILog output may show diagnostic XREF created, XREF updated, or XREF deleted messages for pending file watcher events; duplicate events for the same xref are collapsed before incremental analysis updates the dependency data.

Getting Started

1. Open your OpenEdge ABL project workspace in VS Code.
2. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P).
3. Run the "CrossWayAI: Generate Dependency Map" command.
   • This will create a .crosswayai directory in your workspace root, generate an initial dsMap.json file containing your project's source files, and then execute the backend ABL process for a full analysis.

5. Run the "CrossWayAI: Dump All DB Definitions" command

   • This will dump all databases configured in the openedge-project.json under the .crosswayai\dump directory in your workspace root.

6. (optionally) run the "CrossWayAI: Proparse All Projects" command

   • This will output corresponding proparse files of all workspace ABL files under the .crosswayai\proparse directory in your workspace root.

Once the analysis is complete, you can use the other commands to generate specific diagrams or to view the corresponding XREF or Proparse content of an ABL file.

Diagram Exclusions

You can hide specific files or folders from generated diagrams by adding paths to the excludes array in .crosswayai/crosswayai_settings.json.

For detailed setup instructions, see: Diagram Exclusions Guide

Extension Commands

The following commands are available in the Command Palette :

• CrossWayAI: Generate Dependency Map: The primary command to kick off the full analysis of the workspace projects' files.
• CrossWayAI: Dump All DB Definitions: Helper command to dump the current workspace databases schema definition files in order to enable users to generate table relationship diagrams using the chat agent.
• CrossWayAI: Proparse All Projects: (optional) Helper command to output proparse files for the whole workspace

and via context menus:

• Diagram:

  • Impact: Generate an impact analysis diagram for the selected file.
  • Include: Generate an include diagram for the selected file
  • Interface: Generate an interface diagram for the selected class or interface.
  • Inheritance: Generate an inheritance diagram for the selected class.
  • Call: Generate a call (invoke and run) diagram for the selected class, procedure or .w .
  • Package: Generate a package diagram for the selected file.
  • Instance Chain: Generate an instantiation chain diagram for the selected file.
  • Property Access: Generate a property access chain diagram for the selected file.

• File:

  • XREF: Open the corresponding XREF file for the selected file.
  • PROPARSE: Open the corresponding Proparse file for the selected file.

• Table Relations Diagram: Generate the selected .df file's tables relations diagram using chat agent

• View diagram: Open the CrossWayAI Viewer for the selected .md file

Release Notes

1.9.2

• Bug Fixes:
  • corrected double-click tooltip navigation on Windows to open the right overloaded method/constructor and highlight the full target method, constructor, property, or procedure range
  • corrected AI disabled/configuration message to use generic AI feature wording for both node summaries and Table Relations diagram
  • patched existing .crosswayai/crosswayai_settings.json files with missing default configuration keys during extension activation while preserving user values
  • corrected AI node summary generation
  • corrected XREF watcher logging
  • corrected incremental XREF updates to pick up newly added include files and clean stale dependency map entries more reliably
  • added a warning popup and CrossWayAILog message when dependency map generation finds missing XREF files
  • corrected AI summary icon visibility so virtual .pl nodes no longer show summary actions
  • corrected multi-project persistent procedure RUN mapping so persistent procedure files and internal procedure calls appear in Impact and Call diagrams
  • added logic to close the viewer and remove stale Mermaid diagrams when source files are deleted, including in multi-project workspaces where files may share the same name
• Improvements:
  • documented that AI features use workspace plain text, including source files for AI node summaries and dumped .df schema text for Table Relations diagrams
  • AI node summaries are now persisted in dsMap.json, reused before prompting AI again, and can be regenerated from the summary tooltip reload button
  • Mermaid .md diagrams now mirror the original source folder structure (<project>/<source>/...) under .crosswayai/mermaid, matching the xref layout, so diagrams for files that share a base name across different folders or projects no longer overwrite each other; on activation, old-version .md diagrams left directly under .crosswayai/mermaid (from before the folder-structured layout) are automatically removed
  • unified public-property and inherited-property impact diagram links under the generic property label
  • refactored code for impact and call diagram to increase performance

For the full release history, see the CHANGELOG.

Enjoy!