Ask any developer what they dread and upgrading a vulnerable package will be somewhere near the top of the list. Not because the version bump is hard, but because everything around it is a time sink. You have to research what changed, hunt through the codebase for every place that depends on the old behavior, update each part manually, and hope you did not miss anything. If the upgrade touches twenty files, your day is gone.
The rise of AI coding assistants has made this even more common. Developers are pulling in more packages than ever, often generated automatically by the assistant, and the pace of change is speeding up. AI accelerates delivery, but it also accelerates the number of risky dependencies entering the pipeline. Teams end up with more vulnerable or malicious packages, more refactoring work, and a growing pressure to remediate issues at a scale that traditional workflows cannot keep up with.
This is exactly why Checkmarx One Developer Assist exists. It brings verified security intelligence into the IDE so developers can fix issues quickly and safely, even as AI increases the volume of code they produce.
Inside Developer Assist, Safe Refactor focuses on one of the most painful and time consuming tasks in this new reality: upgrading vulnerable or malicious packages without breaking the codebase. It takes the error prone work of package refactoring and turns it into a guided, predictable workflow inside the IDE. Developers stay in flow, security gets clean upgrades, and no one loses hours chasing breaking changes.
Why Package Upgrades Are So Painful
Upgrading a vulnerable or malicious package should be simple. The reality is never simple.
A single upgrade requires:
- Reading release notes and migration guides.
- Figuring out which APIs changed or were deprecated.
- Searching the entire repo for functions and imports that rely on the old version.
- Updating them manually.
- Rebuilding until everything stops breaking.
This is not a one-click task. It is research plus refactoring plus debugging. That is why teams often defer upgrades even when they know the package is a risk.
Safe Refactor removes that hesitation. It makes the entire process fast, predictable, and safe to apply.
What Safe Refactor Actually Does
Safe Refactor focuses on one job: helping developers upgrade problematic packages without breaking their code.
Here’s how it works:
It identifies packages that need attention
Developer Assist flags packages that are vulnerable or malicious. The developer does not need to hunt them down.
It recommends the correct safe version
Instead of guessing or relying on AI to pick something, Safe Refactor uses verified Checkmarx data to suggest the right version to upgrade to.
It analyzes the codebase to find every impacted file
This is where the time savings become real. Safe Refactor looks across the project and finds all the places where the old version is used and where the code will break if left untouched.
It shows the developer exactly what needs to be updated
Safe Refactor presents a clear list of files and precisely what code needs to change for the upgrade to succeed. No wandering through the repo, no digging through docs.
The developer reviews and applies the changes in the IDE
Everything happens in one place. Every change is visible, explainable, and easy to accept.
This is not a blind AI rewrite. It is a guided, transparent update that gives developers confidence the refactor is complete.
Why This Saves Hours of Work
If you have ever upgraded a package that touches twenty files, you already know the math.
Without Safe Refactor:
- One to three hours of research.
- Another hour or two updating code in each affected file.
- More time debugging when the build breaks or tests fail.
- Even more time chasing down edge cases you missed the first time.
With Safe Refactor:
- Identify the package.
- Accept the upgrade.
- Review the changes.
- Move on.
This is the kind of time savings that developers feel immediately. Instead of blocking real work, the upgrade becomes part of the normal flow.
Why AppSec and Leadership Care
Security teams get safer upgrades because developers are no longer avoiding them. Every change is rooted in verified Checkmarx intelligence, and every update is easy to apply and understand. CISOs see reduced risk from vulnerable packages and fewer hours wasted on preventable rework. It is a cleaner, faster path to a healthier dependency landscape.
The Takeaway
Safe Refactor is not trying to refactor your entire codebase. It is focused on a very real, very common workflow that burns time and introduces risk. By helping developers upgrade packages safely and completely, it turns a disruptive task into a quick, trusted step in the development process.
If you want to see how much time your team can save, we can package this into a demo that shows the before and after experience using a real world vulnerable library example, reach out and schedule a demo today! Or, if you prefer, come to one of our bi-weekly webinars where you can see Checkmarx One Assist in action, and ask questions!