Inspect
Open-source, CLI-based entity-level code review that scores Git diff risk in 6ms
If you live in a terminal and review large diffs, Inspect is a must-try—it's free, local, and delivers the sharpest signal we've seen. It's not for teams wanting a hosted dashboard or chat-driven review. But for pure triage, it beats every noisy PR tool out there.
Verified 7d ago · liveness 71/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/inspect
- Large, complex codebases where manual diff review misses structural breakage
- CI pipelines needing a fast, zero-cost risk gate before merge
- AI coding agents that need entity-level triage to prioritize review targets
- Security-conscious teams wanting local-only static analysis with optional LLM enrichment
- Teams that want a chat-driven, conversation-style code review UI (CLI-only)
- Projects needing a hosted SaaS with dashboards and collaboration
- Non-technical reviewers who can't operate a terminal
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Skip Inspect if you need a hosted, chat-driven code review dashboard with collaboration features, or if your team isn't comfortable operating a terminal.
The optional LLM review in `inspect review` sends up to 10 entities to your chosen provider by default, which may incur API costs depending on your usage and plan.
Inspect is free and open-source for the CLI, making it the most cost-effective option for teams that want local, fast, entity-level triage with no per-seat fees. Compared to hosted alternatives like CodeRabbit or Greptile, which charge per-user or per-repo, Inspect offers a zero-cost way to gate merges on risk. For teams needing hosted review, the HTTP API is available, but it's not a free tier.
In short
Inspect — Open-source, CLI-based entity-level code review that scores Git diff risk in 6ms. Best for Large, complex codebases where manual diff review misses structural breakage, CI pipelines needing a fast, zero-cost risk gate before merge, AI coding agents that need entity-level triage to prioritize review targets. Free to use.
What's new in Inspect
Checked 4 days agoAcross the latest 3 updates: 2 feature updates and 1 launch.
inspect 9731d47: Graph-centric risk scoring rewrite
Risk scoring now prioritizes dependents and blast radius. AACR-Bench HC recall improved to 48.3%.
inspect 33c94fb: Greptile benchmark 83.5% HC recall
Ran on 50 PRs, 97 golden comments. 83.5% HC recall, 100% at Medium threshold. Beats Augment, Greptile, CodeRabbit, Cursor, Copilot.
inspect 6b2e4fd: MCP server, review verdict, markdown formatter
New MCP crate with 6 tools, ReviewVerdict enum, and markdown format added. Caches analysis to avoid recomputation.
What people actually say about Inspect — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
124 mentions across 8 sources (Hacker News, YouTube, Product Hunt, App Store, Bluesky, Stack Overflow, GitHub, Lemmy) · researched Jul 6, 2026.
- +Local execution with no API calls for core triage.
- +Entity-level diff analysis highlights structurally risky changes.
- +Graph-centric risk scoring based on dependents and blast radius.
- +Supports 21 languages plus 5 data formats via tree-sitter.
- +95% recall on planted bugs benchmark with zero LLM calls.
- −Very few direct user reviews or community discussions.
- −App Store version has severe bugs and sync issues.
- −No cloud version; requires local setup for CI pipelines.
- −Core signal from dependency graph, not deep code understanding.
- −Lack of integration with popular CI/CD platforms like GitHub Actions.
- • LLM review requires you to bring your own API key for Anthropic, OpenAI, or Ollama.
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is Inspect? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: August 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Entity-level diff analysis via tree-sitter
- Graph-centric risk scoring (dependents + blast radius)
- Change classification (text, syntax, functional, combination)
- Union-Find commit untangling
- Runs fully local with 0 API calls for core triage
- Optional LLM review via Anthropic, OpenAI, or OpenAI-compatible servers
- MCP server with 6 tools (inspect_triage, inspect_entity, etc.)
- Supports 21 programming languages: TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, Go, Rust, Java, C, C++, C#, Ruby, PHP, Swift,
- Supports 5 data formats: JSON, YAML, TOML, CSV, Markdown
- Multiple output formats: terminal, JSON, markdown
- Stateless per commit, no database
- Parallel graph building (Sentry 40s → ~4s)
- Benchmark: 95% recall on planted bugs (141 bugs, 5 repos)
- Benchmark: 83.5% high/critical recall on Greptile benchmark
- Optional HTTP API for hosted review
About Inspect
Inspect is an open-source, CLI-based code review tool that cuts through the noise of large diffs by scoring each changed entity's risk. It parses Git diffs, extracts functions, classes, and methods, and ranks them by dependents and blast radius. In about 6ms per commit, it tells you which files in an 8-file PR actually need careful review. Built for developers and engineering teams who prefer terminals and CI pipelines over chatty review UIs. It runs fully local and stateless, with no API calls required for core triage, making it a zero-cost addition to any workflow. Under the hood, Inspect uses tree-sitter and sem-core to support 21 programming languages (plus 5 data formats) and builds a full-repo dependency graph. Its four-phase pipeline—Extract, Classify, Score, Group—uses graph-centric scoring so a change to a public API with 12 dependents and blast radius 171 ranks CRITICAL, while a comment tweak stays LOW. It even untangles tangled commits via Union-Find, separating independent logical changes for cleaner review. For deeper analysis, you can optionally invoke `inspect review` to send high-risk entities to Anthropic, OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible server (including local Ollama). An MCP server with 6 tools lets AI agents plug into entity-level triage. Output lands in terminal, JSON, or markdown—whatever fits your pipeline. Benchmarks are the headline: 95% recall on 141 planted bugs across 5 repos, and 83.5% high/critical recall on the Greptile benchmark, topping Augment, Greptile, CodeRabbit, Cursor, and Copilot. Parallel graph building crunches Sentry from 40s to ~4s. This isn't a full code review platform—no dashboard, no collaboration, no SaaS. It's a precision tool for teams who want to stop scrolling through irrelevant diffs and start reviewing what matters.
Behind the Verdict
Let's be blunt: most code review tools drown you in notifications and make you read every line of a 500-file PR. Inspect flips that. It's a CLI that tells you exactly which files demand your eyes, in milliseconds, with zero cloud dependency. That's a breath of fresh air for anyone who's ever stared at a diff wall and wondered where the real landmines are. Pick Inspect when your repos are large enough that manual review is a bottleneck. The 6ms per commit triage is astonishingly fast, and the 95% recall on planted bugs shows it's not just fast—it's accurate. The graph-centric scoring (dependents and blast radius) makes sense: a change to a public API with hundreds of dependents is objectively riskier than a comment tweak, and Inspect quantifies that. But Inspect isn't a full review platform. There's no web dashboard, no threaded comments, no team collaboration. If you need those, you'll want something like CodeRabbit, Greptile, or GitHub's built-in review. Inspect is a precision scalpel, not a Swiss Army knife. It's for engineers who live in the terminal, not for stakeholders who want a shiny UI. The optional LLM integration is a svelte touch—you can pipe high-risk entities to Anthropic, OpenAI, or a local Ollama for deeper analysis, but it's not required. That keeps the core free and private. The MCP server is a bonus for AI agents: they can now triage and prioritize their own review targets. Where it bites: it's CLI-only, so non-technical reviewers are out. And if your team is used to conversational review, the static output might feel cold. But for its niche—fast, local, accurate triage—Inspect is hard to beat. It's open-source, so you can inspect the code yourself, and it's free. We'd reach for this whenever a PR touches critical paths or when we're juggling
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Inspect actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
Integrating a risk gate into GitHub Actions
Outcome: Run `inspect diff HEAD~1 --min-risk critical` in CI; if any critical entities are found, block the merge. This adds a zero-cost, milliseconds-fast gate that prevents risky changes from reaching production.
Reviewing a large PR across multiple files
Outcome: Run `inspect diff` to get a ranked list of changed entities. Focus review on the 1-2 critical entities with high dependents and blast radius, skipping low-risk changes. Saves hours per day.
Building a PR-review bot with MCP
Outcome: Expose `inspect_triage` as an MCP tool to your coding agent. The agent gets entity-level risk data with a verdict, letting it prioritize which files to analyze deeply, without burning tokens on low-risk changes.
Use Cases
- Triage every pull request in CI by running `inspect diff HEAD~1` and blocking merges on critical entities
- Quickly identify which changed functions are used by many others before merging to production
- Run `inspect bench` on your monorepo to measure how often risky changes slip through
- Use the MCP server to give AI coding agents entity-level risk awareness during automated PR reviews
- Combine inspect with a local LLM via Ollama for air-gapped code review without sending code to any cloud
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-08-18
Limitations
- Inspect is a CLI tool, so it is not suited for non-technical users.
- The core triage runs locally with no API calls, but the optional LLM review requires an API key or a local server (e.g., Ollama), and by default sends up to 10 entities for review.
- Full graph builds on large codebases may take several seconds, though optimizations have reduced Sentry analysis from 40s to ~4s.
as of 2026-08-10
Verification history
We have re-verified Inspect 6 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published Inspect tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Free
$0
Ideal for
Developers and engineering teams who want a zero-cost, local, and fast entity-level code review tool for triaging PRs in the terminal or CI.
What this tier adds
Free entry point with all core features: entity-level diff analysis, graph-centric risk scoring, local and stateless operation, 21 languages + 5 data formats, and optional LLM review (bring your own key).
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Inspect's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Inspect is free and open-source for the CLI, making it the most cost-effective option for teams that want local, fast, entity-level triage with no per-seat fees. Compared to hosted alternatives like CodeRabbit or Greptile, which charge per-user or per-repo, Inspect offers a zero-cost way to gate merges on risk. For teams needing hosted review, the HTTP API is available, but it's not a free tier.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Inspect — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Install via Homebrew (`brew install ataraxy-labs/tap/inspect`) or Cargo, then run `inspect diff HEAD~1` in any Git repo for immediate value—under 5 minutes. No configuration needed for basic triage; add an API key only if you want LLM review.
Switching to or from Inspect
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From manual diff review: start by running `inspect diff` on your next PR; no setup, just interpret the risk levels.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
Official links
Tools that pair well with Inspect
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside Inspect, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Mira
Open-source, self-hosted AI code reviewer that indexes your full repo and uses the LLM of your choice.
Ai Review
Open-source AI code review that runs inside your CI/CD pipeline, keeping code private.
Continue
Open-source AI coding agent for VS Code and JetBrains, now frozen after Cursor acquisition.
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Inspect vs Spider Cloud
If you need to pull structured web data at scale for AI pipelines, Spider Cloud is the clear pick with its Rust engine, 99.9% success rate, and flexible API. For teams drowning in noisy PRs who want to surface critical changes instantly, Inspect offers free, local, graph-based code triage that beats premium tools on recall. These tools solve completely different problems — choose Spider Cloud for external data ingestion, Inspect for internal code quality.
Inspect vs Temporal Ai
Temporal AI and Inspect serve completely different needs. Temporal is for building reliable, durable workflows and AI agents that survive failures, while Inspect is a code review triage tool that highlights structurally risky changes in milliseconds. If your pain point is unreliable agent execution or complex microservice orchestration, choose Temporal. If you're drowning in noisy PR diffs and want entity-level risk scoring, choose Inspect. They are complementary, not competitive.
Inspect vs Voyage Ai
Choose Voyage AI if your priority is high-accuracy retrieval on domain-specific documents (finance, legal) and you need long-context, low-dimensional embeddings for cost-efficient vector storage at enterprise scale. Choose Inspect if you are an engineering team struggling with noisy code reviews and want free, local, graph-based risk triage for pull requests — especially if you already use GitHub and want to integrate with AI agents via MCP.
Alternatives to Inspect
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