| name | brooks-lint |
| description | AI code reviewer grounded in classic software engineering books for catching design smells, coupling issues, and architectural risks. |
| category | Development & Code Tools |
| source | antigravity |
| tags | ["claude","ai","agent","design","security","rag"] |
| url | https://github.com/sickn33/antigravity-awesome-skills/tree/main/skills/brooks-lint |
Brooks Lint
Overview
Brooks Lint is a Claude Code skill that reviews your code through the lens of 12 classic software engineering books. Instead of checking style rules, it asks: "What would the authors of The Pragmatic Programmer, Clean Code, and Designing Data-Intensive Applications say about this code?"
It synthesizes the principles from landmark engineering books into actionable, structured feedback — catching design smells, tight coupling, missing abstractions, and architectural risks that linters and AI tools typically miss.
Named after Fred Brooks, author of The Mythical Man-Month — because the hardest bugs are conceptual, not syntactic.
The 12 Books
| Book | Key Principles Applied |
|---|
| The Pragmatic Programmer | DRY, orthogonality, tracer bullets |
| Clean Code | Naming, function size, comment clarity |
| The Mythical Man-Month | Conceptual integrity, second-system effect |
| Designing Data-Intensive Applications | Data consistency, fault tolerance, scalability |
| A Philosophy of Software Design | Deep modules, information hiding, complexity |
| Refactoring | Code smells, extract method, encapsulation |
| Working Effectively with Legacy Code | Seams, characterization tests, dependency breaking |
| Domain-Driven Design | Ubiquitous language, bounded contexts, aggregates |
| Release It! | Stability patterns, timeouts, bulkheads, circuit breakers |
| Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs | Abstraction, recursion, metalinguistic abstraction |
| The Art of UNIX Programming | Modularity, composability, rule of least surprise |
| Extreme Programming Explained | YAGNI, simple design, collective ownership |
When to Use This Skill
- Use when you want architectural feedback beyond what linters provide
- Use before major refactors to identify structural debt
- Use when reviewing code that "works but feels wrong"
- Use when onboarding to a codebase to quickly map risk areas
- Use for design reviews before starting a new module or service
How It Works
Brooks Lint applies each book's core principles as a review lens:
- Smell detection: Flags violations of DRY, SRP, Law of Demeter, etc.
- Coupling analysis: Identifies tight dependencies and missing abstraction layers
- Naming critique: Applies Clean Code naming rules to variables, methods, classes
- Architecture review: Checks for DDIA-style data consistency and fault tolerance gaps
- Stability patterns: Flags missing timeouts, retries, and circuit breakers (Release It!)
- Complexity scoring: Applies APOSD complexity metrics to identify over-engineered sections
Installation
npx agentic-awesome-skills --claude
Examples
Example 1: Review a Service Class
@brooks-lint review src/services/PaymentService.ts
Brooks Lint output:
[Pragmatic Programmer] DRY violation: payment validation logic duplicated in 3 places
[Clean Code] Method processPayment() does 4 things — violates Single Responsibility
[Release It!] No timeout on external payment gateway call — risk of cascade failure
[DDIA] No idempotency key — retry on network error will double-charge
[APOSD] PaymentService knows too much about UserRepository — high coupling
Example 2: Full Codebase Architecture Review
@brooks-lint analyze the overall architecture of this codebase
Example 3: Pre-Refactor Review
@brooks-lint what are the biggest design smells in this module before I refactor it?
Review Categories
| Category | Books Applied | What It Catches |
|---|
| DRY / Duplication | PP, Refactoring | Copy-paste code, shared logic not extracted |
| Naming | Clean Code, DDD | Unclear names, domain language violations |
| Coupling | APOSD, PP | Tight dependencies, missing interfaces |
| Stability | Release It! | Missing timeouts, no retry logic, no circuit breakers |
| Data Integrity | DDIA | Race conditions, non-idempotent operations |
| Complexity | APOSD, SICP | Over-engineering, unnecessary abstraction |
| Legacy Debt | WELC | Hard-to-test code, missing seams |
| Domain Clarity | DDD, XP | Anemic models, missing bounded contexts |
Best Practices
- Run
@brooks-lint after writing new service layers or data pipelines
- Combine with
@logic-lens for full coverage: logic bugs + design smells
- Use
@brooks-lint analyze architecture weekly on growing codebases
- Focus on CRITICAL and HIGH findings first — LOW findings are style suggestions
Related Skills
@logic-lens — Complementary: catches logic bugs; brooks-lint catches design issues@security-auditor — Specialized security-only deep scan@lint-and-validate — Style/syntax linting to run alongside design review
