I often rely on ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, but it is a little bit frustrating to constantly copy and paste between the copilot chat window and my open code files. Why not update the files directly? I also tried using Cursor, which solved the first problem, but still have to open each file individually to add them to the AI's context.
That's why I created batchai
. The idea is simple: less copy-pasting, fewer clicks on 'Add to Chat' or 'Apply.' batchai
traverses files and processing each of them. Since AI isn’t always perfect, I’ve designed it to run only on a Git directory, so we can easily diff the changes and choose to either commit or revert them.
Currently, batchai
only supports code check and fixing common issues (think of it as a local AI-driven SonarQube). The next feature in progress is generating unit test code in batches, which I plan to use in a few of my personal projects (including this batchai
), as they have very few unit tests. Other planned features include code explanation, comment generation, and refactoring — all of which will be handled in batches. Additionally, I’m working on enabling batchai
to have an overall insight of the project’s code, such as building cross-file code symbol indexing, which should help the AI perform better.
Here are some interesting findings from testing batchai on my personal projects over the past two weeks:
- It can identify issues that traditional tools, such as SonarQube, tend to miss.
- It may not report all issues in one go, so I need to run it multiple times.
- Due to outdated LLM training data and hallucinations, it's crucial to confirm the changes for accuracy by myself - That's why I make
batchai
work only on clean Git repository directories.
I used the spring-petclinic (cloned from https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-petclinic) for demonstration.
Here are some examples of correct check:
And also a wrong fix:
More detail:
- Batch Code Check : Reports issues to the console, saves as a check report, and then optionally fixes code directly.
- Batch Test Code Generation
- Customized Prompts.
- File Ignoring : Specifies files to ignore, respecting both
.gitignore
and an additional.batchai_ignore
file. - Target Specification : Allows specifying target directories and files within the Git repository.
- Implemented using Go: Resulting in a single executable binary that works on Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows.
- Diff: Displays colorized diffs in the console.
- LLM Support : Supports OpenAI-compatible LLMs, including Ollama.
- I18N : Supports internationalization comment/explaination generation.
- Explain, Comment Generation, Test Generation, Refactoring.
- Rejected Changes Tracking : Tracks rejected changes to avoid redundant modifications.
- Language-Specific Prompts : Different prompts for various programming languages.
- LLM Usage Metrics : Implements metrics for tracking LLM usage.
-
Download the latest executable binary from here and add it to your $PATH. For Linux and Mac OSX, remember to run
chmod +x ...
to make the binary executable. -
Clone the demo project. The following steps assume the cloned project directory is
/data/spring-petclinic
cd /data git clone https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-petclinic cd spring-petclinic
In this directory, create a .env file. In the .env file, set the OPENAI_API_KEY. Below is an example:
# OpenAI OPENAI_API_KEY=change-it #OPENAI_PROXY_URL= #OPENAI_PROXY_USER= #OPENAI_PROXY_PASS= #BATCHAI_CHECK_MODEL=openai/gpt-4o-mini # Ali TONGYI qwen #QWEN_API_KEY=change-it #BATCHAI_CHECK_MODEL=tongyi/qwen2.5-coder-7b-instruct # local Ollama #OLLAMA_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1/ #BATCHAI_CHECK_MODEL=ollama/qwen2.5-coder:7b-instruct-fp16
For Ollama, you can refer to my example docker-compose.yml
-
CLI Examples:
- Report issues to the console (also saved to
build/batchai
):
cd /data/spring-petclinic batchai check . src/main/java/org/springframework/samples/petclinic/vet/Vets.java
- Directly fix the target files via option
--fix
:
cd /data/spring-petclinic batchai check --fix . src/main/java/org/springframework/samples/petclinic/vet/Vets.java
- Run
batchai
in main Java code only:
cd /data/spring-petclinic batchai check . src/main/java/
- Run
batchai
on the entire project:
cd /data/spring-petclinic batchai check .
- Report issues to the console (also saved to
-
To view the global help menu and available commands, run:
batchai -h
NAME: batchai - utilizes AI for batch processing of project codes USAGE: batchai [global options] command [command options] <repository directory> [target files/directories in the repository] VERSION: 0.1.2 (5eeb081) COMMANDS: check Scans project codes to check issues. Report is outputed to console and also saved to 'build/batchai' list Lists files to process test Generate unit test code explain (TODO) Explains the code, output result to console or as comment comment (TODO) Comments the code refactor (TODO) Refactors the code help, h Shows a list of commands or help for one command GLOBAL OPTIONS: --enable-symbol-reference Enables symbol collection to examine code references across the entire project (default: false) --force Ignores the cache (default: false) --num value, -n value Limits the number of file to process (default: 0) --concurrent If or not concurrent processing (default: false) --lang value, -l value language for generated text (default: en_US.UTF-8) [$LANG] --help, -h show help --version, -v print the version
-
To see detailed help for the
check
command, run:batchai check -h
NAME: batchai check - Report issues to console, also saved to 'build/batchai' USAGE: batchai check [command options] OPTIONS: --fix, -f Replaces the target files (default: false) --help, -h show help
Tested and supported models:
-
OpenAI series:
-
openai/gpt-4o
-
openai/gpt-4o-mini
Other OpenAI models should work too.
-
-
Ali TONYI Qwen series:
qwen2.5-coder-7b-instruct
(also available via Ollama)
Other Qwen models should work too.
To add more LLMs, simply follow the configuration in res/static/batchai.yaml, as long as the LLM exposes an OpenAI-compatible API.
-
Optional configuration file:
You can provide an optional configuration file:
${HOME}/batchai/batchai.yaml
. For a full example, refer to res/static/batchai.yaml -
Environment file:
You can also configure
batchai
via an environment file.env
located in the target Git repository directory. Refer to res/static/batchai.yaml for all available environment variables, and res/static/batchai.env for their default values. -
Ignore specific files:
batchai
ignores the directories and files following.gitignore
files. This is usually sufficient, but if there are additional files or directories that cannot be ignored by Git but should not be processed by batchai, we can specify them in the.batchai_ignore
files. The rules are written in the same way as in.gitignore
. -
Customized Prompts Refer to
BATCHAI_CHECK_RULE_*
andMY_CHECK_RULE_*
in [res/static/batchai.yaml]
MIT