What is stackbrief?

StackBrief is a command-line tool that helps a developer, or an AI coding agent, understand a codebase before making a change to it, rather than after. Instead of reading through an entire repository or relying on a README that may be out of date, you point it at the specific file you are about to edit, and it produces a short report showing how that file connects to the rest of the system. That report covers things like which routes or services the file is part of, which other files import or depend on it, which databases or outside APIs are touched along the way, and any related tests it can find. Wherever possible, it backs up its claims with the actual file paths and line numbers where it found the evidence, rather than just describing things in general terms. When it cannot confirm something for certain, such as behavior that only shows up while the program is actually running, it plainly marks that as unknown instead of guessing. Everything runs locally on your own machine. It does not need an internet connection, an account, an API key, or any AI service to produce its analysis, and it never uploads your code anywhere. The tool first scans a repository to build a structured snapshot of it, saved as a file, which every other feature then reads from rather than each one re-analyzing the code separately. It can also be installed as a skill for AI coding agents like Claude, giving them the same pre-change context a human developer would use, so the agent can plan a code change with real evidence rather than guessing at how the system fits together. This is aimed at developers and teams using AI coding agents who want a fast, repeatable way to understand the blast radius of a planned change in an unfamiliar or complex codebase before touching any code. It requires Node.js version 16.7 or newer to run.