# JakeWharton/scalpel

A surgical debugging tool to uncover the layers under your app.

Repository: https://github.com/JakeWharton/scalpel
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/scalpel
Language: Java
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Archived: true
Last push: 2020-02-28T14:37:39+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4622, "days_push": 2378, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2762, forks 230 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:18.507788+00:00)

## What it is
An Android library that renders your view hierarchy as an interactive, rotatable 3D visualization for debugging layout issues. It is now deprecated in favor of Android Studio 4.0's built-in layout inspector.

## Use cases
- visualize android view hierarchy in 3d
- debug overlapping views in android layout
- inspect nested layouts on a device
- find hidden views in my app ui
- rotate and zoom app layout layers while debugging

## When to choose
- you are stuck on legacy tooling without Android Studio 4.0 and need on-device 3D hierarchy inspection
- you want a lightweight, in-app view layer visualization without external tooling

## When to avoid
- you use any modern Android Studio version - the built-in layout inspector supersedes it
- you need a maintained library - the project is explicitly deprecated
- you target Android versions below 4.4 - known text rendering issues

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: abandoned
- function: developer-tools, ui-components, graphics
- domain: mobile-development, developer-tools, android-tools
- platform: jvm
- tags: android, layout-inspector, debugging, 3d-view-hierarchy, deprecated, view-hierarchy-visualization, mobile

## Member repositories
- JakeWharton/scalpel (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:18.507788+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T08:17:27.291638+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/JakeWharton/scalpel (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:18.507788+00:00, sha aaf3ea22ce0a)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.