Codacy
Static analysis and quality gates for engineering teams.
Hound
Automated style guide enforcement for GitHub pull requests.
Hound automatically reviews GitHub pull requests for style guide violations across 15+ languages, providing instant feedback via status checks and comments, helping teams maintain consistent code quality.
Overview
Overview
Hound is a Rails‑based service that integrates directly with GitHub to examine pull requests for style guide violations. It targets development teams and open‑source maintainers who want to enforce consistent coding standards without manual review overhead.
Capabilities & Deployment
Supported languages include Bash, Elixir, Go, HAML, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, Markdown, PHP, Python, Ruby, ERB, Sass/SCSS, and Swift. When a PR contains no issues, Hound reports a successful status, keeping the CI pipeline clean. The service is offered as a hosted solution, and the underlying codebase is available under the MIT license for those who wish to self‑host or contribute.
Benefits
By delivering inline comments and status checks immediately after a push, Hound reduces back‑and‑forth discussions about formatting, allowing reviewers to focus on functional concerns.
Highlights
Supports 15+ programming and markup languages
Integrates with GitHub pull request workflow
Provides instant feedback via status checks and comments
Reports success when no style violations are found
Pros
- Easy to add to existing GitHub projects
- Broad language coverage reduces need for multiple linters
- Immediate, automated feedback improves developer velocity
- MIT license encourages community contributions
Considerations
- Limited to style guide checks; no deep static analysis
- Works only with GitHub repositories
- Custom rule creation is not exposed in the hosted service
- Relies on the hosted platform for uptime and performance
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider Hound, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Teams using GitHub that need consistent code style
- Open‑source projects seeking automated pull‑request reviews
- Continuous‑integration pipelines that require quick lint feedback
- Repositories written in any of the supported languages
Not ideal when
- Projects hosted on platforms other than GitHub
- Use cases requiring custom linting rules or deep analysis
- Languages not listed among the supported set
- Environments that need on‑premise security guarantees
How teams use it
Enforce Ruby style guidelines
Pull requests with Ruby code receive inline comments for any style violations, ensuring a uniform codebase before merge.
Catch JavaScript formatting errors early
Developers receive status check failures and comments highlighting formatting issues, preventing broken builds caused by lint errors.
Validate Markdown documentation standards
Documentation updates are automatically reviewed for heading hierarchy, line length, and other style rules, keeping project docs clean.
Automate Python code style compliance
Python contributions are scanned for PEP‑8 violations, providing immediate feedback and reducing manual review time.
Tech snapshot
Ruby79%
JavaScript10%
SCSS7%
HTML2%
Haml2%
Shell1%
Frequently asked questions
Which languages does Hound support?
Hound can review Bash, Elixir, Go, HAML, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, Markdown, PHP, Python, Ruby, ERB, Sass/SCSS, and Swift.
How does Hound report its findings?
It adds comments to the pull request and updates the GitHub status check, marking the PR as passed when no issues are found.
Is there a free tier available?
Hound offers a hosted service; pricing details are available on the website. The codebase itself is open source under the MIT license.
Can I customize the style rules?
The hosted service uses predefined style guides. Customization would require self‑hosting and modifying the configuration.
How can I contribute to the project?
Contributions are welcomed via pull requests. See the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the repository for guidelines.
Project at a glance
Dormant- Stars
- 2,023
- Watchers
- 2,023
- Forks
- 395
LicenseMIT
Repo age13 years old
Last commit2 years ago
Primary languageRuby
Last synced 2 months ago