CodingMediumcod-g740

Subject Topological sortLevel Mid–Staff~30 minCommon in Algorithms & data structures interviewsIndustries Software development, IT services

Question

A data pipeline has n tasks (0..n-1), each with an integer `duration`, and `deps` `[a, b]` meaning task b cannot start until task a finishes. Tasks with no unmet dependency can run in parallel. Return the minimum total wall-clock time to finish all tasks (the length of the critical path), or -1 if the dependencies contain a cycle.

Implement

critical_path_length(n: int, durations: list[int], deps: list[list[int]]) → int

Examples

in[4,[3,2,5,1],[[0,1],[0,2],[1,3],[2,3]]]out9

What a strong answer looks like

State your approach and its time/space complexity out loud before you optimize. Handle the edge cases (empty input, duplicates, overflow), and say why you chose this over the brute force. Green tests are the floor, not the grade.

Learn the concepts

Vibe coding: describe the solution in plain language (or narrate it) and the coach grades your approach. Generating runnable code from your description is coming next.

Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.