Exploring Technical Debt Tools: A Systematic Mapping Study

Abstract

Context: The concept of technical debt (TD) is a metaphor inspired by the financial debt of economic theory to represent unavoidable quality compromises derived by the non -optimal solutions that aim short-term benefits to software projects, in terms of increased productivity and reduced cost, but that in the long-term negatively affect software quality. Objective: This work aims (i) to make a critical examination of technical debt tools, (ii) to consolidate the understanding about how existing tools map to TD types and activities, and (iii) to analyze the existing empirical evidence on their validity. Results: We select 47 primary studies and evaluate 50 tools. An essential outcome of this research is a holistic view of TD tools regarding the features proposed by them to address technical debt in different dimensions and a categorization that describes and encompasses the main characteristics of the tools. We also present a maturity level analysis of the tools. Finally, we discussed the main findings and implications for future research. Conclusions: We identify that most of existing tools are industrial, revealing a considerable interest of the industry in TD tools. Most of the tools address code-related TD. There is a need for more evaluation studies to quantify the usefulness and reliability of the tools. Moreover, we recognize the necessity of dedicated TDM tools for managing non-code-related TD.