sonar_get_technical_debt

Comprehensive technical debt analysis with time estimates, budget planning, ROI calculations, and prioritized action plan.

Description

Analyzes technical debt across bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells. Provides actionable insights for sprint planning including time estimates, budget analysis, and ROI calculations.

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
includeBudgetAnalysis	boolean	No	true	Include time budget planning

Usage

Full Analysis

What's our technical debt situation?

Tool call:

{}

Without Budget

Show me technical debt without budget analysis

Tool call:

{
  "includeBudgetAnalysis": false
}

Response Format

TECHNICAL DEBT ANALYSIS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

📊 OVERVIEW:
  Total Debt:     5d 2h (3,960 minutes)
  Debt Ratio:     3.2%
  Quality Score:  B

📋 BREAKDOWN BY TYPE:

  Bugs (12 issues):
    Debt:       1d 4h
    Priority:   HIGH
    ────────────────────
    BLOCKER:    2 (8h)
    CRITICAL:   3 (6h)
    MAJOR:      5 (8h)
    MINOR:      2 (2h)

  Vulnerabilities (5 issues):
    Debt:       6h
    Priority:   CRITICAL
    ────────────────────
    CRITICAL:   2 (4h)
    MAJOR:      3 (2h)

  Code Smells (156 issues):
    Debt:       3d 0h
    Priority:   MEDIUM
    ────────────────────
    MAJOR:      45 (18h)
    MINOR:      89 (8h)
    INFO:       22 (2h)

💰 BUDGET ANALYSIS:

  For 1-day sprint (8h):
    - Fix all BLOCKER bugs (2h)
    - Fix all CRITICAL vulnerabilities (4h)
    - Remaining: 2h for code smells
    Impact: -23% total debt

  For 3-day sprint (24h):
    - Fix all bugs (12h)
    - Fix all vulnerabilities (6h)
    - Fix 15 major code smells (6h)
    Impact: -58% total debt

  For 1-week sprint (40h):
    - Fix all bugs and vulnerabilities (18h)
    - Fix 55 code smells (22h)
    Impact: -85% total debt

📈 ROI ANALYSIS:

  High-Impact Quick Wins:
    1. Fix 2 BLOCKER bugs
       Time: 2h | Impact: Security + Reliability

    2. Fix 2 CRITICAL vulnerabilities
       Time: 4h | Impact: Security Rating A → B

    3. Remove 23 unused imports
       Time: 30min | Impact: 15% fewer code smells

🎯 RECOMMENDATIONS:

  Immediate Actions:
  • Fix all blockers and critical vulnerabilities
  • Estimated time: 8h
  • Impact: Significant security improvement

  Short-term (1 week):
  • Address all bugs
  • Fix major code smells in hot paths
  • Target: Security Rating A

  Long-term:
  • Maintain debt ratio below 5%
  • Regular cleanup sprints
  • Prevent new debt via quality gates

Debt Calculation

SonarQube calculates debt based on:

Issue Type	Typical Effort
Blocker bug	4h
Critical bug	2h
Major code smell	30min
Minor code smell	10min

Examples

Example 1: Sprint Planning

Prompt:

Help me plan a debt reduction sprint

Tool Call:

{
  "includeBudgetAnalysis": true
}

Example 2: Quick Overview

Prompt:

How much technical debt do we have?

Tool Call:

{
  "includeBudgetAnalysis": false
}

Example 3: Executive Report

Prompt:

I need debt analysis for a management report

Tool Call:

{
  "includeBudgetAnalysis": true
}

ROI Prioritization

Prioritize debt by:

Factor	Weight
Security impact	Highest
Reliability impact	High
Maintainability	Medium
Fix time	Consider

Best Practices

1. Regular reviews - Check debt weekly
2. Budget time - Allocate 10-20% of sprint to debt
3. Prevent accumulation - Quality gates block new debt
4. Track trends - Debt should decrease over time

Common Issues

"No debt data"

Cause: Project hasn't been scanned.

Solution: Run sonar_scan_project first.

"Debt seems too high/low"

Cause: Effort estimates may not match your team.

Solution: Use as relative measure, not absolute.

Related Tools

• sonar_analyze_patterns - Group by fixability
• sonar_get_project_metrics - All metrics
• sonar_generate_report - Full report