rulebound watch

Watch a directory for file changes and run real-time rule validation and AST analysis. Violations are reported immediately as you edit code.

Usage

rulebound watch [dir] [options]

Arguments

Options

Default Ignore Patterns

These directories are ignored by default:

• node_modules
• .git
• dist
• .next
• coverage

Add custom ignores:

rulebound watch --ignore "build" --ignore "tmp"

What It Does

On each file change, the watch command:

1. Detects language from the file extension
2. Runs AST analysis using tree-sitter with built-in anti-pattern queries
3. Runs rule validation against your .rulebound/rules/
4. Reports violations in real-time

Only files with supported language extensions are analyzed. Unsupported files are silently skipped.

Examples

# Watch current directory
rulebound watch

# Watch a specific directory
rulebound watch src/

# JSON output (useful for editor integrations)
rulebound watch --format json

# Faster debounce for immediate feedback
rulebound watch --debounce 100

# Ignore additional directories
rulebound watch --ignore "generated" --ignore "vendor"

Output Formats

Pretty format (default):

[ERROR] src/auth.ts:15 - empty-catch: Empty catch blocks hide errors
[WARN]  src/api.ts - SHOULD: Input Validation - validate user input

JSON format (for tool integration):

{"type":"ast","file":"src/auth.ts","line":15,"rule":"empty-catch","severity":"error","message":"Empty catch blocks hide errors"}

Stopping

Press Ctrl+C to stop the watcher.

Watch mode uses Node.js native fs.watch with recursive mode, which requires Node.js 18+.