Download the PHP package typedduck/consult-rector without Composer

consult-rector

Refactor PHP by telling your AI agent what you want changed — it picks the Rector rule (or composes a custom AST transform), shows you the diff, and applies it only once you approve. consult-rector is an Agent Skill plus the CLI it drives. Edits are AST transforms, never text munging.

Talk to your agent, not to a config file

You do not hand-write rector.php or memorise rule FQCNs. You say what you want, in plain language, to a coding agent that has the skill (Claude Code, Cursor, …):

Convert the one-line closures in src/ to arrow functions.

The skill takes it from there: it searches the installed Rector rules, runs a dry-run, shows you the diff, and — only after you approve — applies it. Every step is the consult-rector CLI returning structured JSON the agent reads; you stay in the review-and-approve seat.

It works in your language — the request is just natural language:

src/ の中の、1 行で値を返すクロージャを全部アロー関数にして。

The flagship: a breaking change, propagated and verified

Changing a declaration and chasing every call site by hand is where refactors go wrong. Describe the intent instead:

Order::setStatus(string $status) を Status enum を受け取るように変えて、 'paid' や 'shipped' を渡している呼び出し側も対応する enum ケースに直して。

The skill (1) changes the declaration, (2) rewrites the call-site literals to enum cases — the AST pass alone knows which case each literal becomes — and (3) runs PHPStan as a completeness oracle: the error delta against a pre-change baseline enumerates any site it could not reach, so nothing is silently missed (see docs/adr/0004-*).

Install

consult-rector is a Composer package; the agent drives its CLI, so install it in the project you want to refactor:

That brings the consult-rector binary, the skill instructions (SKILL.md), the MCP server, and the bundled rule references — a skill-aware agent discovers the skill from there. To drop the skill straight into any agent's skill directory, use vercel-labs/skills:

Requirements: PHP 8.2+ and rector/rector ^2.5 (installed as a dependency).

What you can ask for

• Convert closures to arrow functions — or apply any single shipped Rector rule.
• Add or change type declarations (parameter, return, property).
• Migrate a stringly-typed argument to an enum and propagate it to call sites, verified by PHPStan (the flagship above).
• Apply PSR-4 namespace fixes, or a PHP version upgrade via a Rector upgrade set.
• A pinpoint custom AST transform when no off-the-shelf rule fits, written as a JSON-array S-expression — type-change transforms carry a from guard so they fire only when the current type matches, never by accident.

The agent finds the right rule through references/rectors-by-category.md, a recipe book, or consult-rector search; you only describe the goal.

Under the hood — the CLI the agent drives

You rarely type these yourself; the skill does. They exist so the loop stays reviewable and scriptable:

An MCP server (consult-rector-mcp) exposes the same operations as rector_* tools over stdio for MCP-native clients.

Development

bamarni/composer-bin-plugin isolates the dev tooling under .vendor-bin/:

Design decisions live in docs/adr/; the domain glossary is CONTEXT.md.

License

MPL-2.0.