Built on Anthropic's CLAUDE.md best practices. Lint your agent's clarity, structure, security, memory, and consistency in one command. Catch leaked secrets, vague instructions, and broken references before they cost you.
Free & open source · No config needed · Runs in seconds
Built on open standards
Why this matters
A single CLAUDE.md file can dramatically change how your agent performs. Vague instructions produce vague results. Leaked secrets become vulnerabilities. Contradictions across files cause unpredictable behavior.
“Be specific: ‘Use 2-space indentation’ is better than ‘Format code properly.’”
"Be helpful" gives your agent nothing to work with. Ambiguous pronouns, missing priorities, and naked conditionals degrade output quality without any error message.
of agent configs score below 60 on Clarity
API keys, tokens, and passwords end up in CLAUDE.md files that get committed to repos. Standard .gitignore doesn't catch secrets embedded in markdown.
workspaces have exposed credentials
SOUL.md defines one persona, CLAUDE.md another. TOOLS.md references files that don't exist. As your workspace grows, contradictions multiply.
more contradictions in 5+ file workspaces
How it works
No setup. No config files. Point it at your workspace and get an instant, actionable report.
Discovers every .md file in your workspace — CLAUDE.md, SOUL.md, USER.md, TOOLS.md, rules/, skills/. Parses structure, references, and content.
Supports Claude Code, OpenClaw, Moltbot, Cursor, Windsurf, and any Agent Skills–compatible workspace.
Evaluates across five dimensions: structure, clarity, completeness, security, and cross-file consistency. Each scored 0–100.
Rules based on Anthropic's official best practices plus community-contributed patterns from real agent workspaces.
Every issue comes with a prescription and a suggested fix. Secrets get flagged for rotation. Contradictions get resolved.
Each diagnostic includes a 💡 Fix suggestion. Apply them to your files and re-run to verify your score improves.
Security Scanner
The MoltX incident exposed 440,000 agents to private key theft through a malicious skill. AgentLinter now scans skills for hidden attack vectors before you install them.
Metadata tricks — fake names, hidden permissions, misleading descriptions
Malicious code — remote eval, secret exfiltration, wallet drains
Injection payloads — LLM manipulation, context poisoning
curl|bash, eval(), dynamic requires
Private key, seed phrase, wallet access
Prompt manipulation, context override
Unauthorized transaction signing
Score + Skill scan + Share (all-in-one)
Verify external skill before installing
Smart Detection
AgentLinter automatically detects your workspace type and adjusts recommendations. No configuration needed.
Detected when only CLAUDE.md is present.
Detected when AGENTS.md, openclaw.json, or moltbot.json exists.
Scoring Engine
Not a vibe check. Every score is backed by specific, documented rules derived from Anthropic's guidelines, security best practices, and patterns from high-performing agent workspaces.
🔴 CRITICAL Missing TOOLS.md — referenced in CLAUDE.md:12⚠️ WARN "be helpful" → specify: response length, tone, format⚠️ WARN No error recovery workflow — add escalation path🔴 CRITICAL Secret: API key "sk-proj-..." in TOOLS.md:14🔴 CRITICAL SOUL.md persona ≠ CLAUDE.md persona — reconcile⚠️ WARN No handoff protocol — agent loses context between sessions🔴 CRITICAL Gateway bind "0.0.0.0" — exposes agent to network🔴 CRITICAL Skill contains: curl ... | bashHow we're different
Anthropic's Claude Code provides CLAUDE.md memory and skills — the building blocks. AgentLinter analyzes whether you're using them effectively.
Not a replacement — an extension.
AgentLinter builds on Anthropic's CLAUDE.md standard and the Agent Skills open standard. Think of it as ESLint for JavaScript — the language gives you the syntax, the linter tells you if your code is good.
Reports
Every run generates a web report with tier grade, category breakdown, prescriptions, and percentile ranking. Track progress over time.
Intelligence
Every lint teaches us something. Common failures become new rules. Bad fixes get replaced. The engine improves with every run.
Scores shift based on which warnings users fix immediately vs ignore.
Patterns found in top-scoring agents become new rule candidates.
Low-acceptance fixes get replaced through A/B testing.
Starter templates evolve based on what files users add.
All data anonymized · opt-out: --no-telemetry
Privacy & Security
All scanning and scoring runs 100% locally. Your file contents never leave your machine. Report sharing is optional — when enabled, only scores and diagnostic messages are uploaded (not your actual files). Use --local to skip sharing entirely.
All scanning runs on your machine. File contents never leave. Report sharing (scores + diagnostics only) is optional — use --local to disable entirely.
When AgentLinter detects a secret (API key, token, password), it appears as [REDACTED] in diagnostics. Even in shareable reports, raw secrets are never included.
Shareable reports contain only scores, file names, line numbers, and diagnostic messages. Never the original file content. Your SOUL.md stays private.
Every line of code is on GitHub. No obfuscated binaries, no hidden network calls. Read it, fork it, verify it. Trust through transparency.
Unlike many dev tools, AgentLinter sends zero analytics out of the box. If you opt in to anonymous usage stats, it's aggregated counts only — never content.
In CI pipelines, AgentLinter only outputs scores and diagnostics to stdout. No artifacts, no uploads, no external dependencies beyond Node.js itself.
AgentLinter reads your files locally, scores them locally, and outputs results locally. Nothing touches a server unless you choose to share a report — and even then, only scores and diagnostic messages are included, never your actual file contents.
Run it in your agent workspace. Get your score in seconds. No signup. No API key. No config.
100% free & open source · Click to copy · Node.js 18+
If AgentLinter helped improve your agent setup, share it with fellow developers. Every share helps the open-source agent ecosystem grow stronger.
Acknowledgments
Skill Security Scanner was inspired by @sebayaki's MoltX security analysis — thank you for uncovering the vulnerability that protects 440K+ agents today.