Getting started#

Django project#

The following example runs colref against wagtail, a popular Django CMS.

No references found:

$ colref check --orm django --model Page --field search_description
Scanning 932 files...

No references found for Page.search_description

  Verify manually before deleting.

References found:

$ colref check --orm django --model Page --field seo_title
Scanning 932 files...

References found for Page.seo_title

  wagtail/admin/tests/pages/test_create_page.py:1867   page.seo_title
  wagtail/admin/tests/pages/test_create_page.py:1892   page.seo_title

Rails project#

The following example runs colref against mastodon.

No references found:

$ colref check --orm rails --model Account --field sensitized_at
Scanning 1502 files...

No references found for Account.sensitized_at

  Verify manually before deleting.

References found:

$ colref check --orm rails --model Account --field memorial
Scanning 1502 files...

References found for Account.memorial

  app/models/account.rb:176                                 [string] scope :without_memorial, -> { where(memorial: false) }
  app/services/activitypub/process_account_service.rb:149   @account.memorial
  app/services/delete_account_service.rb:231                @account.memorial

**No references found ≠ safe to delete.** Always verify manually — dynamic references such as `getattr(obj, var)` are out of scope.

Next steps#

• Usage — all flags, ORM-specific behavior
• Detection patterns — full breakdown of what is and isn’t matched
• Limitations — what static analysis can’t cover