Dependency Inspector tab

Visualise hard and soft dependencies across your installed creations and see, before you remove anything, what else would break.

What you see

A centered list of every installed creation in load order, with curved connectors drawn on both sides linking each creation to the ones it depends on (or that depend on it). The visual language matches the Diff dialog: coloured Bezier curves, endpoint dots, and the same white-glow highlight-and-dim treatment when a row is selected.

Reading the graph

• Connectors are split between the left and right sides of the grid by a router that minimises crossings — there is no semantic difference between the two sides.
• Row colour matches the colour of that creation's first outgoing edge ("depends on"). If a creation has only incoming edges ("is depended on by"), the colour comes from the first incoming edge instead. Outgoing always wins when both exist.
• Hard vs soft edges share the same palette; soft edges are drawn slightly thinner. Toggle Hide soft dependencies to focus on the breakage-critical hard set.
• Creations with no known dependencies are folded into a single — N collapsed — separator row by default. Flip the toggle off to see them inline.
• A red ! in the leftmost column flags a row whose hard dependency points at a creation you don't have installed — the connector itself is omitted to keep the graph clean.

Selection & highlighting

Click any creation. The directed transitive closure — every creation it transitively depends on (above) and every creation that transitively depends on it (below) — highlights in white with a soft glow. Everything else dims. Siblings that merely share a common dependency with the selected creation are not highlighted; the selection answers "what would break if I removed this?" rather than "what's vaguely related?".

Click the same row again, or click any empty area (canvas, separator row, margin), to clear the selection.

Controls

What this tab does not do

The Dependency Inspector is read-only. It will not disable, remove, or reorder anything — those actions belong in the in-game Creations menu and the Load Order tab. The inspector exists purely so you can make those decisions with full information, rather than discovering breakage after the fact.

Where the data comes from

• Hard dependencies — each creation's required_mods field from the local creations catalogue (populated by the Installed Creations update check).
• Soft dependencies — the patch_order_rules.json file produced by the description parser when run.

Edges pointing at uninstalled creations are dropped from the graph entirely (no stub connectors). Hard misses raise the warning indicator on the dependent row; soft misses are silent.