CLI Reference

The writetighter binary provides five subcommands: lint (deterministic), revise (contextual), prompt (instructional), config (setup), and profile (management).

Commands

• lint checks sentence length and paragraph density. No model required.
• revise uses your configured model to provide rewrites and clarifications.
• prompt prints revision instructions for delegation. No model required.
• config interactive setup for model endpoints.
• profile manages embedded or custom rule bundles.

--text, --stdin, and file/dir paths are mutually exclusive. Prefer --stdin for shell safety.

writetighter lint

Checks deterministic profile rules. For --kind code-comment, explicit supported source files (.go, TypeScript/JavaScript variants, .rs, .py, and .pyi) are lexed so only cataloged comments are linted; findings map back to the original source ranges. --stdin, --text, and unsupported extensions retain prose-style linting.

writetighter lint (PATH... | --stdin | --text STRING) [flags]

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
--kind	description	Sets sentence-length limit (see table below)
--format	human	human, json, or agent
--fail-on	none	none, warning, or error
--profile	embedded default	Pin a specific ID@VERSION

Kinds

--kind	Use for	Sentence limit
pr	PR/commit bodies	20 words
procedure	Instructions	20 words
description	Prose/READMEs	25 words
code-comment	Inline comments	25 words
reference	API/Config docs	25 words
decision	ADRs/Design docs	25 words
incident	Incident reports	25 words
agent-instruction	Skills/Prompts	25 words
status-update	Status/Diagnostics	25 words

writetighter revise

Provides contextual rewrites and clarifications. For --kind code-comment, explicit supported source files (.go, TypeScript/JavaScript variants, .rs, .py, and .pyi) use a whole-file, lexer-owned comment catalog: only cataloged comments can be findings, and reported source text/ranges are catalog-owned. --stdin, --text, and unsupported extensions keep the legacy prose-style code-comment path. Code-aware file review rejects --reference until bounded cross-file context is supported. Review remains advisory and never applies edits.

writetighter revise (PATH... | --stdin | --text STRING) [flags]

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
--kind	description	Document kind (see lint kinds table)
--format	json	json or human
--profile	embedded default	Pin a specific ID@VERSION
--reference	(none)	Path to reference file or directory (repeatable)
--model	config	Override the configured model for this run
--code-model	config	Override the model for code-aware comment revision
--context-tokens	auto-detect	Override model context window (0 = auto-detect from /v1/models)
--output-tokens	default	Override max output tokens sent to the API (0 = default when context window is known)

Output is JSON. Each item in revisions[] is either a rewrite or a clarification.

When --reference is used, revise auto-detects the context window from the /v1/models endpoint. Use --context-tokens to override if the endpoint does not report context metadata.

writetighter prompt

Prints revision instructions for subagent delegation.

writetighter prompt --kind code-comment

writetighter config

Interactive setup for OpenAI-compatible endpoints. Writes to ~/.config/writetighter/config.toml.

Flags

Flag	Description
--wizard, -w	Run the interactive configuration wizard
--model	Set model ID (re-preflights and refreshes response mode)
--code-model	Set the model used for code-aware comment revision

When already configured, config prints the current configuration with the API key redacted. The wizard auto-detects context capacity from /v1/models but does not persist it — revise auto-detects at runtime instead.

Optional [llm] code_model in the config file specifies a different model for code-aware comment revision, so you don't need to pass --code-model on every invocation.

writetighter profile

writetighter profile list
writetighter profile verify software-docs-en@0.6.0
writetighter profile install ./path/to/bundle

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
1	lint findings reached --fail-on
2	Usage, config, or input error
3	revise model call failed