crackerjack

Crackerjack

Quick Links

• Overview
• Installation
• Quick Start
• Core Workflow
• Quality Hook Modes
• MCP Server Configuration

Overview

Crackerjack is the standard quality-control and CI/CD runner across the Bodai ecosystem. It unifies linting, typing, tests, security checks, packaging, and release-oriented workflows behind a consistent command surface.

Core capabilities:

• Unified quality gates for linting, typing, tests, security, and packaging
• Fast local and CI execution paths
• AI-assisted fixing and MCP integration where appropriate
• Release and publishing workflows for Python projects

What Problem Does Crackerjack Solve?

Instead of configuring multiple tools separately:

# Traditional workflow
pip install black isort flake8 mypy pytest
# Configure each tool individually
# Set up git hooks manually
# Remember different commands for each tool

Crackerjack provides unified commands:

pip install crackerjack
python -m crackerjack run        # Setup + quality checks
python -m crackerjack run --run-tests        # Add testing
python -m crackerjack run --all patch # Full release workflow

Key differentiators:

• Single command replaces 6+ separate tools
• Pre-configured with Python best practices
• UV integration for fast dependency management
• Automated publishing with PyPI authentication
• MCP server for AI agent integration

The Crackerjack Philosophy

Crackerjack is built on the following core principles:

• Code Clarity: Code should be easy to read, understand, and maintain
• Automation: Tedious tasks should be automated, allowing developers to focus on solving problems
• Consistency: Code style, formatting, and project structure should be consistent across projects
• Reliability: Tests are essential, and code should be checked rigorously
• Tool Integration: Leverage powerful existing tools instead of reinventing the wheel
• Auto-Discovery: Prefer automatic discovery of configurations and settings over manual configuration when possible, reducing setup friction and configuration errors
• Static Typing: Static typing is essential for all development

Crackerjack vs Pre-commit: Architecture & Features

Crackerjack and pre-commit solve related but different problems. While pre-commit is a language-agnostic git hook manager, Crackerjack is a comprehensive Python development platform with quality enforcement built-in.

Architectural Differences

Aspect	Pre-commit	Crackerjack
Execution Model	Wrapper framework that spawns subprocesses for each hook	Direct tool invocation with adapter architecture
Concurrency	Synchronous sequential execution (one hook at a time)	Async-first with 11 concurrent adapters - true parallel execution
Performance	Overhead from framework wrapper + subprocess spawning	Zero wrapper overhead, 70% cache hit rate, 50% faster workflows
Language Focus	Language-agnostic (Python, Go, Rust, Docker, etc.)	Python-first with native tool implementations
Configuration	YAML-based.pre-commit-config.yaml with repo URLs	Python-based configuration with sensible defaults
Hook Management	Clones repos, manages environments per hook	Native Python tools + direct UV invocation

Feature Comparison

Quality Hooks & Tools