---
name: codebase-inspection
description: "Inspect codebases w/ pygount: LOC, languages, ratios."
version: 1.0.0
author: Hermes Agent
license: MIT
metadata:
  hermes:
    tags: [LOC, Code Analysis, pygount, Codebase, Metrics, Repository]
    related_skills: [github-repo-management]
prerequisites:
  commands: [pygount]
---

# Codebase Inspection with pygount

Analyze repositories for lines of code, language breakdown, file counts, and code-vs-comment ratios using `pygount`.

## When to Use

- User asks for LOC (lines of code) count
- User wants a language breakdown of a repo
- User asks about codebase size or composition
- User wants code-vs-comment ratios
- General "how big is this repo" questions

## Prerequisites

```bash
pip install --break-system-packages pygount 2>/dev/null || pip install pygount
```

## 1. Basic Summary (Most Common)

Get a full language breakdown with file counts, code lines, and comment lines:

```bash
cd /path/to/repo
pygount --format=summary \
  --folders-to-skip=".git,node_modules,venv,.venv,__pycache__,.cache,dist,build,.next,.tox,.eggs,*.egg-info" \
  .
```

**IMPORTANT:** Always use `--folders-to-skip` to exclude dependency/build directories, otherwise pygount will crawl them and take a very long time or hang.

## 2. Common Folder Exclusions

Adjust based on the project type:

```bash
# Python projects
--folders-to-skip=".git,venv,.venv,__pycache__,.cache,dist,build,.tox,.eggs,.mypy_cache"

# JavaScript/TypeScript projects
--folders-to-skip=".git,node_modules,dist,build,.next,.cache,.turbo,coverage"

# General catch-all
--folders-to-skip=".git,node_modules,venv,.venv,__pycache__,.cache,dist,build,.next,.tox,vendor,third_party"
```

## 3. Filter by Specific Language

```bash
# Only count Python files
pygount --suffix=py --format=summary .

# Only count Python and YAML
pygount --suffix=py,yaml,yml --format=summary .
```

## 4. Detailed File-by-File Output

```bash
# Default format shows per-file breakdown
pygount --folders-to-skip=".git,node_modules,venv" .

# Sort by code lines (pipe through sort)
pygount --folders-to-skip=".git,node_modules,venv" . | sort -t$'\t' -k1 -nr | head -20
```

## 5. Output Formats

```bash
# Summary table (default recommendation)
pygount --format=summary .

# JSON output for programmatic use
pygount --format=json .

# Pipe-friendly: Language, file count, code, docs, empty, string
pygount --format=summary . 2>/dev/null
```

## 6. Interpreting Results

The summary table columns:
- **Language** — detected programming language
- **Files** — number of files of that language
- **Code** — lines of actual code (executable/declarative)
- **Comment** — lines that are comments or documentation
- **%** — percentage of total

Special pseudo-languages:
- `__empty__` — empty files
- `__binary__` — binary files (images, compiled, etc.)
- `__generated__` — auto-generated files (detected heuristically)
- `__duplicate__` — files with identical content
- `__unknown__` — unrecognized file types

## Fallback When `pygount` Is Missing

If `pygount` is unavailable and installing it is unnecessary or blocked, use a quick git-tracked source inventory instead of stopping. This is especially useful during repo triage/refactor planning:

```bash
python3 - <<'PY'
import os, subprocess
from pathlib import Path
root = Path.cwd()
files = subprocess.check_output(['git', 'ls-files'], text=True).splitlines()
print('tracked files', len(files))
for needle in ['node_modules/', '.env', 'firebase-adminsdk', ' copy', 'public copy']:
    hits = [f for f in files if needle in f]
    print(needle, len(hits), hits[:10])
skip_suffixes = ('.png', '.jpg', '.jpeg', '.webp', '.gif', '.svg', '.ttf', '.woff', '.woff2', '.otf', '.lock')
total = 0
by_ext = {}
for f in files:
    p = root / f
    if not p.exists() or any(f.endswith(s) for s in skip_suffixes):
        continue
    try:
        n = sum(1 for _ in p.open(errors='ignore'))
    except Exception:
        continue
    total += n
    by_ext[p.suffix or '[none]'] = by_ext.get(p.suffix or '[none]', 0) + n
print('text LOC-ish', total)
print('by extension', sorted(by_ext.items(), key=lambda x: -x[1])[:15])
PY
```

This is not a substitute for `pygount` language classification, but it reliably exposes hygiene problems such as committed `node_modules`, committed secrets, copy-artifact sprawl, and approximate size.

## Pitfalls

1. **Always exclude .git, node_modules, venv** — without `--folders-to-skip`, pygount will crawl everything and may take minutes or hang on large dependency trees.
2. **Markdown shows 0 code lines** — pygount classifies all Markdown content as comments, not code. This is expected behavior.
3. **JSON files show low code counts** — pygount may count JSON lines conservatively. For accurate JSON line counts, use `wc -l` directly.
4. **Large monorepos** — for very large repos, consider using `--suffix` to target specific languages rather than scanning everything.