messharp

Catch maintainability problems in C# before they calcify: oversized methods and types, tangled dependencies, dead private code, muddy naming, and other mess that reviews keep rediscovering.

messharp is a local CLI. It parses C# with Roslyn syntax-only analysis, never builds or runs your project, and needs no project dependencies installed. Target framework net8.0.

Quick start

scripts/dotnet.sh build -c Release
scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp -- ./src text csharp --ignore-tests

That scans src with the recommended low-noise policy and prints findings on stdout. Exit 0 is clean, 2 means findings, 1 means the tool or a source file failed.

Common next steps:

scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp -- ./src text csharp,opinionated --ignore-tests
scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp -- ./src sarif csharp --ignore-tests --reportfile reports/messharp.sarif
scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp -- ./src github csharp --ignore-tests

Full command syntax, options, and discovery: docs/usage.md. What each ruleset and rule checks: docs/rules.md.

Install

brew install quality-gates/tap/messharp

Repo tooling runs through Docker wrappers so a host .NET SDK is optional:

scripts/dotnet.sh build -c Release
scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp -- --version

Runtime image:

docker build -t messharp .
docker run --rm -v "$PWD":/code messharp /code text csharp --ignore-tests

Tune the gate

Start with csharp. Add opinionated when you want the stricter checks the recommended set leaves out. Add explicitness (or explicitness-strict) to find implicit inputs and outputs, the side effects that make a method an action. Point at a custom XML ruleset when thresholds or membership need to live in the repo:

<ruleset name="team policy">
  <rule ref="csharp">
    <exclude name="DevelopmentCodeFragment" />
  </rule>
  <rule ref="LongVariable">
    <priority>2</priority>
    <properties>
      <property name="maximum" value="50" />
    </properties>
  </rule>
</ruleset>

scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp -- ./src text path/to/team-policy.xml --ignore-tests

Suppress one intentional exception

Drop a rule for the whole run with --disable, skip paths with --exclude, or encode the exception in a team ruleset:

<rule ref="csharp">
  <exclude name="RuleName" />
</rule>

--strict keeps suppressed findings visible in the report when suppressions are present.

Drop it into CI

# GitHub Actions
- run: scripts/dotnet.sh build -c Release
- run: scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp --no-build -c Release -- ./src github csharp --ignore-tests

# GitLab Code Quality
script: scripts/dotnet.sh run --project src/MessSharp -- ./src gitlab csharp --reportfile gl-code-quality-report.json
artifacts:
  reports:
    codequality: gl-code-quality-report.json

This repository also self-checks after building. A finding fails the job with exit code 2.

Maintainers

Command reference: docs/usage.md. Rulesets: docs/rules.md. Homebrew release and recovery steps: docs/homebrew-release.md. Contributing and SOLID guidance: CONTRIBUTING.md. Exploratory testing reports and replayable fixtures: docs/exploratory-testing/.

Development checks:

scripts/dotnet.sh test