Best tools for Refactoring

Plan-first AI coding agent that designs before implementing

Traycer is a YC-backed AI coding agent that takes a plan-first approach to software development. It creates detailed implementation plans with architectural decisions and dependency analysis before writing code. The agent reasons about project structure and constraints to produce coherent, well-organized changes rather than incremental patches. Focused on reducing rework from poorly planned AI-generated code.

Open-source AI coding agent with self-hosted deployment option

Refact.ai is an open-source AI coding agent that handles engineering tasks end-to-end with code completion, refactoring, and context-aware chat. It ranks #1 on SWE-bench Verified among open-source agents. Supports self-hosted on-premise deployment, BYOK with 20+ LLMs, and RAG-powered codebase understanding. Available for VS Code and JetBrains IDEs with integrations for GitHub, Docker, and PostgreSQL.

Blazing-fast PHP linter, formatter, and static analyzer in Rust

Mago is a comprehensive PHP toolchain written in Rust that unifies linting, formatting, and static analysis into a single binary. It enforces PER-CS formatting standards, catches code smells with 100+ lint rules, and performs deep type inference for semantic analysis. Inspired by Clippy and OXC from the Rust ecosystem, it delivers performance orders of magnitude faster than PHPStan and Psalm while requiring no PHP runtime to execute.

CLI tool to convert codebases into LLM-ready prompts

code2prompt is a Rust CLI that converts entire codebases into structured prompts optimized for LLM context windows. It intelligently filters files using gitignore patterns, respects token budgets, generates directory tree visualizations, and supports custom Handlebars templates for output formatting. The tool addresses the core challenge of feeding large codebases to AI coding assistants by producing clean, organized context that maximizes the value of limited token budgets.

ByteDance's open-source LLM coding agent with multi-provider support

Trae Agent is ByteDance's open-source software engineering agent that autonomously resolves GitHub issues, fixes bugs, and implements features using any LLM provider. It supports OpenAI, Anthropic, Doubao, Azure, Ollama, and Gemini backends, making it one of the most provider-flexible coding agents available. With over 11,000 GitHub stars and a modular research-friendly architecture, it offers a strong alternative to Western-centric coding agents.

Find unused files, dependencies, and exports in JavaScript and TypeScript projects

Knip is an open-source CLI tool that detects unused files, dependencies, devDependencies, and exports in JavaScript and TypeScript codebases. It analyzes the full dependency graph to identify dead code that accumulates over time — especially relevant for AI-generated codebases where unused artifacts pile up faster than manual cleanup can handle. With over 10,800 GitHub stars, it has become a standard code hygiene tool in the JS/TS ecosystem.

Incremental parsing system powering code intelligence in AI editors

Tree-sitter is an incremental parsing library with 19,000+ GitHub stars used by Cursor, Neovim, GitHub, and Helix for real-time syntax analysis. It generates concrete syntax trees that update incrementally as code changes, enabling AI code editors to understand program structure for intelligent completions, refactoring, and code navigation.

Use Neovim like Cursor with AI-driven code assistance and one-click apply

avante.nvim is a Neovim plugin that brings Cursor-style AI coding assistance to the Vim ecosystem. It provides inline code suggestions, AI chat with codebase context, one-click diff application, and multi-model support including Claude, GPT, Gemini, and local models. With 12,000+ GitHub stars and active development, it is the leading AI coding plugin for Neovim users who want IDE-level AI features without leaving their editor.

Beautiful terminal AI coding agent from the Charmbracelet team

crush is an AI-powered coding agent for the terminal built by Charmbracelet, the team behind Bubble Tea, Glow, and other beloved CLI tools. It brings the same attention to terminal UX design to AI-assisted development with features for code generation, refactoring, file editing, and shell command execution. With over 22,000 GitHub stars and the Charmbracelet design philosophy, crush delivers an agentic coding experience that feels native to the terminal workflow developers already use.

Most popular VS Code Git extension with 30M+ installs

GitLens is the most-installed Git extension for VS Code with over 30 million installs. It supercharges Git inside the editor with inline blame annotations, rich commit history visualization, file and line history, AI-powered commit summaries, and interactive rebase tools. Pro features include GitKraken-powered team analytics and visual diff tools. Maintained by GitKraken.

Rust-powered JavaScript linter that is 50-100x faster than ESLint

Oxlint is an extremely fast JavaScript and TypeScript linter built as part of the OXC (Oxidation Compiler) toolchain written in Rust. It runs 50-100x faster than ESLint by parsing and analyzing code in a single optimized pass without requiring any plugins or configurations. Oxlint ships with 520+ built-in rules covering correctness, performance, and style checks, and is designed to run alongside ESLint during migration. Part of Evan You's VoidZero initiative, OXC has over 20,000 GitHub stars.

Extremely fast Python linter and formatter written in Rust

Ruff is a Python linter and code formatter written in Rust by Astral that runs 10-100x faster than existing tools like flake8, isort, and Black. It implements over 800 lint rules from dozens of popular plugins in a single binary, handles auto-fixing for most violations, and includes a built-in formatter compatible with Black. Adopted by FastAPI, Hugging Face, Pandas, and Apache Airflow, Ruff has over 38,000 GitHub stars and processes entire codebases in milliseconds.

Non-agent approach to automated software engineering via localize-and-repair

Agentless takes a deliberate non-agent approach to LLM-powered software engineering. Instead of autonomous agents making tool calls, it uses a structured localize-then-repair pipeline: first narrowing down which files and functions are relevant, then generating targeted patches. Achieved competitive SWE-Bench results at $0.34 average cost per issue. Adopted by OpenAI for o3 evaluations. 3,000+ GitHub stars, MIT licensed. A counterpoint to the agent-heavy trend in AI coding tools.

Pack your entire codebase into a single AI-friendly file

Repomix packages entire repositories into single AI-optimized files for feeding to LLMs like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini. It outputs XML, Markdown, JSON, or plain text with token counting, security scanning via Secretlint, and Tree-sitter-based code compression. Works as CLI, MCP server, or Chrome extension for GitHub. Supports Claude Agent Skills generation. 37,500+ uses on AIBase, MIT licensed, with a web interface at repomix.com for zero-install usage.

Multi-agent orchestration platform for Claude Code

Claude-Flow is an open-source multi-agent orchestration platform that deploys dozens of concurrent Claude Code agents with shared memory and coordinated workflows. It enables parallel task execution, hierarchical agent coordination, and persistent context across sessions. Run via npx with zero setup. Described as the leading agent orchestration platform for Claude by industry analysts, it has 9,100+ GitHub stars and is used for complex codebase-wide refactoring and multi-file development tasks.

AI-native Git client with virtual branches and smart commits

GitButler is an open-source Git client that reimagines version control with virtual branches, AI-assisted commit organization, and intelligent conflict resolution. Co-founded by Scott Chacon (Git co-creator and former GitHub CTO), it lets developers work on multiple changes simultaneously without traditional branch overhead. The AI suggests branch groupings, splits commits semantically, and guides merge conflicts. 14,200+ GitHub stars, dual-licensed GPL/Commercial.

Self-hosted code understanding for humans and agents

Sourcebot is a self-hosted code intelligence platform that helps developers and AI agents understand large codebases through intelligent search, navigation, and inline-cited answers. Deployed as a Docker container with MCP server support, it indexes thousands of repositories without source code leaving your infrastructure.

LSP-powered semantic coding agent via MCP

Serena is a free, open-source coding agent toolkit that provides IDE-like semantic code retrieval and editing capabilities to any LLM via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Built on Language Server Protocol (LSP) integration, it enables symbol-level navigation, cross-file refactoring, and relational code understanding across Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust, Java, PHP, and more — without requiring file-level reads or text-based search.

Ultra-fast JavaScript bundler written in Go

esbuild is a JavaScript bundler written in Go with 38K+ GitHub stars that runs 10-100x faster than traditional bundlers like Webpack. Handles JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, CSS bundling, and minification with near-instant build times. Used as the build engine inside Vite for production builds. Features tree shaking, code splitting, source maps, and a plugin API. Minimal configuration required — most projects need zero config files. Single binary with no JavaScript dependencies.

Opinionated code formatter for web projects

Prettier is an opinionated code formatter with 50K+ GitHub stars that enforces a consistent style by parsing and reprinting code with its own rules. Supports JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, HTML, JSON, Markdown, YAML, GraphQL, and more. Eliminates style debates in code reviews by making formatting automatic and deterministic. Features minimal configuration by design, editor integration for format-on-save, and pre-commit hooks via husky. The de facto formatting standard for web development.

Pluggable JavaScript and TypeScript linter

ESLint is the standard open-source linter for JavaScript and TypeScript with 26K+ GitHub stars. Statically analyzes code to find problems, enforce coding conventions, and automatically fix issues. Features a pluggable rule architecture with 300+ built-in rules and thousands of community plugins for React, Vue, Angular, Node.js, and more. Flat config system in ESLint v9 simplifies configuration. Integrates with every major editor, CI/CD pipeline, and build tool in the JavaScript ecosystem.

Fast Rust-based formatter and linter for web projects

Biome is a Rust-based toolchain for JavaScript, TypeScript, JSX, JSON, and CSS that combines formatting and linting in a single tool running 20-50x faster than ESLint + Prettier. Provides 300+ lint rules with automatic fixes, opinionated formatting compatible with Prettier output, and import sorting. Zero configuration needed to start with sensible defaults. Designed as a drop-in replacement for ESLint and Prettier with first-class IDE support via VS Code and JetBrains extensions.

AI developer productivity platform with stacked PRs

Graphite is an AI-powered developer productivity platform that combines stacked pull requests with intelligent code review. Its AI agent catches real bugs with an under 3% unhelpful comment rate and offers one-click fixes directly in the PR flow. The stacked PR workflow breaks large changes into smaller, sequenced diffs that merge independently, keeping developers unblocked. Includes a stack-aware merge queue, CLI tool, VS Code extension, unified PR inbox, and deep GitHub integration.

Anthropic's agentic coding CLI

Anthropic's agentic CLI coding tool that delegates complex tasks to Claude directly from the terminal. Understands entire codebases via automatic context gathering, edits multiple files, runs shell commands, and manages Git workflows autonomously. Supports CLAUDE.md for persistent project instructions, integrates with VS Code and JetBrains, and uses Claude Opus/Sonnet with extended thinking for complex architectural decisions. Built for terminal-first developers.