Resources / Glossary

Semantic diff

A diff between two states that compares meaning, not text. The kind of diff Skene runs on instrumentation manifests.

Concepts

About this term

This page is part of the Skene analytics instrumentation glossary. Use it as a reference when writing specs, dashboards, or playbooks.

Canonical glossary index: /resources/glossary

Definition

A textual diff cares about lines. A semantic diff cares about meaning. Reformatting a function changes lines but not meaning; deleting a `capture` call changes meaning but might affect zero lines (if it was inlined). Skene's comparator does a semantic diff over the instrumentation manifest so reorderings and formatting changes do not generate noise.