distill vs patchwork — Codebase Conventions for AI Agents
distill is a plugin bundle for AI coding tools published by UtkarshJain98. Marketplaces we read that list it: 1 (Claude Code: claude-plugins-community). patchwork — Codebase Conventions for AI Agents is an MCP server published by SaiNarayana-B. Marketplaces we read that list it: 1 (Official MCP Registry). As of our marketplace pass on 2026-10-17. 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 |  distill |  patchwork — Codebase Conventions for AI Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Claude Code: claude-plugins-community | Listed Version: 0.2.0 Forks (GitHub): 0 Stars (GitHub): 0 Not marked · First seen |
Not listed |
| Official MCP Registry | Not listed | Listed Version: 0.1.7 Downloads/month (PyPI): 108 Downloads/week (PyPI): 17 Forks (GitHub): 0 Stars (GitHub): 0 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 | distill | patchwork — Codebase Conventions for AI Agents |
|---|---|---|
| Marketplaces that list it | 1 | 1 |
| Stars (GitHub) | 0 | 0 |
| Forks (GitHub) | 0 | 0 |
| Last release | Not published | Not published |
| Where it runs (differs) | Installs as a plugin bundle | On your machine (patchwork-conventions) |
| Transport (differs) | Not stated | stdio |
| Tools it declares | Not published | Not published |
| Environment variables it asks for | Not published | Not published |
| Parts of the bundle (differs) | 1 | Not a bundle |
| Licence (differs) | MIT | Not stated |
| Repository (differs) | github.com/utkarshjain98/distill | github.com/sainarayana-b/patchwork |
| Changes in the last 7 days | 0 | 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
distill
distill analyzes your codebase and generates structured context files in .claude/docs/. Instead of Claude reading source files to orient itself every session, it reads concise, pre-built docs on demand — testing.md when working on tests, api.md when working on endpoints, nothing when the task doesn't need it. Token cost becomes proportional to task relevance, not project size. Supports incremental updates (--update only regenerates stale docs), depth profiles (--lean for 30-line summaries, --deep for comprehensive reference), parallel generation for large doc sets, monorepo detection, team configuration via .distill.yml, and a pre-push hook that warns when docs drift.
patchwork — Codebase Conventions for AI Agents
Scan any codebase, generate CONVENTIONS.md, expose conventions as MCP tools for AI agents.
How to run each
distill As a Claude Code plugin
/plugin marketplace add anthropics/claude-plugins-community
/plugin install distill@claude-communitypatchwork — Codebase Conventions for AI Agents As a local MCP server: PyPI package
claude mcp add --transport stdio patchwork -- uvx patchwork-conventionsCommands 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: distill · What it can do: patchwork — Codebase Conventions for AI Agents · 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 the Official MCP Registry (registry.modelcontextprotocol.io), CC0 1.0. Figures come from our own regular passes over the marketplaces, last read on . We publish no contact details for plugin publishers.