brooks-lint vs keep-the-why
brooks-lint is a plugin bundle for AI coding tools published by hyhmrright. Marketplaces we read that list it: 2 (Claude Code: claude-plugins-community, Community GitHub marketplaces). keep-the-why is a plugin bundle for AI coding tools published by oliver-zehentleitner. Marketplaces we read that list it: 1 (Copilot CLI: github/awesome-copilot). As of our marketplace pass on 2026-10-30. This pair was picked by a reader, not by our comparison rule, so search engines are asked not to index the page.
Where each is published
| Marketplace |  brooks-lint |  keep-the-why |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code: claude-plugins-community | Listed Version: 1.4.3 Forks (GitHub): 72 Stars (GitHub): 1 550 Not marked · First seen |
Not listed |
| Copilot CLI: github/awesome-copilot | Not listed | Listed Version: 0.20.3 Forks (GitHub): 14 Stars (GitHub): 231 Not marked · First seen |
Each figure is the marketplace's own and is never added up across marketplaces. A marketplace that publishes no figure shows none: no number is not zero.
The facts side by side
| Fact | brooks-lint | keep-the-why |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplaces that list it (differs) | 2 (better) | 1 (worse) |
| Stars (GitHub) (differs) | 1 550 (better) | 231 (worse) |
| Forks (GitHub) (differs) | 72 (better) | 14 (worse) |
| Last release (differs) | 2026-10-24 (better) | 2026-10-22 (worse) |
| Where it runs | Installs as a plugin bundle | Installs as a plugin bundle |
| Transport | Not stated | Not stated |
| Tools it declares | Not published | Not published |
| Environment variables it asks for | Not published | Not published |
| Hooks it runs (differs) | 1 | Not published |
| Parts of the bundle (differs) | 13 | 2 |
| Licence | MIT | MIT |
| Repository (differs) | github.com/hyhmrright/brooks-lint | github.com/oliver-zehentleitner/keep-the-why |
| Changes in the last 7 days (differs) | 1 | 0 |
| First seen | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-11 |
Lines where the two differ have a tinted background and bold values. Where the data itself says which value is better (more marketplaces, a larger figure of the same marketplace, a fresher release, a verified mark on a marketplace that lists both), the better one is also marked green with ▲ and the worse one red with ▼. Where it runs, the transport, the tools, the settings, hooks, the bundle's parts, the licence and the week's changes are marked only as different: more or fewer is not better in itself.
What each says it does
brooks-lint
Code quality diagnosis using principles from six classic software engineering books (The Mythical Man-Month, Clean Code, A Philosophy of Software Design, Working Effectively with Legacy Code, xUnit Test Patterns, The Art of Unit Testing). Surfaces decay risks across four review modes: PR Review, Architecture Audit, Tech Debt Assessment, and Test Quality Review. Every finding follows the Iron Law: Symptom → Source → Consequence → Remedy — grounding each issue in a named principle from the books.
keep-the-why
Preserves or recovers the reasoning behind a codebase — architectural decisions, rejected alternatives, workarounds, incident learnings, operational constraints, and historical context the code itself cannot explain.
How to run each
brooks-lint As a Claude Code plugin
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community
/plugin install brooks-lint@claude-communitykeep-the-why
No data for an automatic command: what its marketplaces declare does not say unambiguously how to connect it.
Commands built only from what the marketplaces declare; the full set for every client is on each card.
Tools each declares
Neither one's marketplaces publish a list of tools, so there is nothing to compare.
Settings each asks for
Neither one's marketplaces publish the settings it asks for.
What it can do: brooks-lint · What it can do: keep-the-why · Compare two other plugins
Data comes from the public marketplace file https://github.com/anthropics/claude-plugins-community/blob/HEAD/.claude-plugin/marketplace.json. Data comes from public marketplace files in GitHub repositories of their authors. Data comes from the public marketplace file https://github.com/github/awesome-copilot/blob/HEAD/.github/plugin/marketplace.json. Figures come from our own regular passes over the marketplaces, last read on . We publish no contact details for plugin publishers.