{"slug": "i-just-released-sktr-a-deterministic-architecture-review-cli", "title": "I just released SKTR, a deterministic architecture review CLI", "summary": "A developer released SKTR (System Knowledge & Technical Review), a deterministic CLI tool that reviews Git changes for architecture and maintainability issues. SKTR uses analyzers, metrics, and rules to detect problems like forbidden dependencies and large functions, with AI as an optional feature for explanations only. The tool outputs terminal reports, Markdown, JSON artifacts, and Mermaid dependency graphs, and can be used in CI without AI.", "body_md": "Hey everyone!\n\nI've been working on a project called **SKTR**, which stands for **System Knowledge & Technical Review**, and I've just published the first release candidate.\n\nSKTR is a CLI that reviews your current Git changes from an architecture and maintainability perspective.\n\nThe basic workflow is:\n\n```\ncd your-project\nsktr init\nsktr review\n```\n\nIt looks at the Git diff, analyzes the changed code, builds a structured model of the project, and runs deterministic rules against it.\n\nThe important word there is **deterministic**.\n\nI didn't want the tool to send an entire repository to an LLM and ask it to guess what might be wrong. SKTR detects things using analyzers, metrics, and rules first. AI is optional and is only used to explain the evidence and suggest next steps.\n\nThe current release includes analyzers for:\n\nSome of the things it can detect include:\n\nIt also calculates a risk level and review score, giving you an idea of where to focus first.\n\nA terminal report looks roughly like this:\n\n```\nSKTR Review\n\nSummary\nRisk: Medium\nScore: 76/100\nChanged files: 3\nIssues: 2\n\nFindings\nHigh\n! Forbidden dependency\n  controllers/order_controller.py imports repositories/order_repository.py\n\nMedium\n! Large function detected\n  create_order has 114 lines.\n```\n\nThe exact rules and thresholds can be configured in `sktr.yml`\n\n.\n\nThe terminal output is useful locally, but SKTR can also produce Markdown and JSON artifacts:\n\n```\nsktr review --format markdown --output REVIEW.md\nsktr review --format json --output sktr-review.json\n```\n\nThe JSON format has a versioned schema, so it can be used in CI or consumed by other tools.\n\nYou can also make Mermaid dependency graphs:\n\n```\nsktr graph --scope repository\nsktr graph --scope repository --cycles\nsktr graph --scope repository --focus orders\n```\n\nSKTR can write the review artifact and then fail based on issue severity:\n\n```\nsktr review \\\n  --branch \\\n  --no-ai \\\n  --format json \\\n  --output sktr-review.json \\\n  --fail-on high\n```\n\nThis means you can use it as an architecture check without enabling AI or depending on an external service.\n\nAI support is available, but it isn't required.\n\n```\nexport SKTR_OPENAI_API_KEY=\"your-api-key\"\nsktr review --ai\n```\n\nThe AI receives structured findings rather than the whole repository. It doesn't create issues, modify the score, or affect CI severity gates.\n\nSKTR currently requires Python 3.13 or newer.\n\n```\npython -m pip install --pre sktr==1.0.0rc1\nsktr --help\n```\n\nThen run it inside a Git repository:\n\n```\nsktr init\nsktr review\n```\n\nThis is still a release candidate, so I'm especially interested in false positives, confusing output, missing rules, and projects where the analyzers don't understand the architecture correctly.\n\nThe code is open source and available here:\n\nI'm pretty happy to finally get it out into the world. There is still plenty I want to improve, but it already gives useful reviews without requiring AI, which was the main goal from the start.\n\nFeedback and contributions are very welcome.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-just-released-sktr-a-deterministic-architecture-review-cli", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/prubianes/i-just-released-sktr-a-deterministic-architecture-review-cli-fk", "published_at": "2026-07-15 04:46:29+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-15 05:27:00.401499+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["developer-tools"], "entities": ["SKTR", "OpenAI"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-just-released-sktr-a-deterministic-architecture-review-cli", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-just-released-sktr-a-deterministic-architecture-review-cli.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-just-released-sktr-a-deterministic-architecture-review-cli.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/i-just-released-sktr-a-deterministic-architecture-review-cli.jsonld"}}