Code Formatter Skill

This skill provides comprehensive code formatting and validation capabilities using industry-standard tools like Prettier.

Prerequisites

• Node.js and npm/npx installed
• Prettier available globally or locally
• Write permissions for target files
• Supported file types in the project

Instructions

1. Analyze Current Formatting

First, check the current formatting state of files:

# Check if prettier is available
npx prettier --version || npm install -g prettier

# Find all formattable files
find . -type f \( -name "*.js" -o -name "*.jsx" -o -name "*.ts" -o -name "*.tsx" -o -name "*.json" -o -name "*.css" -o -name "*.md" \) -not -path "*/node_modules/*" -not -path "*/dist/*"

# Check which files need formatting
npx prettier --check "**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx,json,css,md}" --ignore-path .prettierignore

2. Configure Formatting Rules

Create or check for existing Prettier configuration:

// .prettierrc
{
  "semi": true,
  "singleQuote": true,
  "tabWidth": 2,
  "trailingComma": "es5",
  "printWidth": 100,
  "bracketSpacing": true,
  "arrowParens": "avoid"
}

3. Apply Formatting

Format individual files or entire directories:

# Format a single file
npx prettier --write src/app.js

# Format all JavaScript files
npx prettier --write "**/*.js"

# Format with specific config
npx prettier --write --config .prettierrc "src/**/*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx}"

# Dry run to see what would change
npx prettier --check src/

4. Set Up Ignore Patterns

Create .prettierignore for files to skip:

# Dependencies
node_modules/
vendor/

# Build outputs
dist/
build/
*.min.js
*.min.css

# Generated files
coverage/
*.lock

5. Integrate with Git Hooks (Optional)

Set up pre-commit formatting:

# Install husky and lint-staged
npm install --save-dev husky lint-staged

# Configure in package.json
{
  "lint-staged": {
    "*.{js,jsx,ts,tsx,json,css,md}": [
      "prettier --write"
    ]
  }
}

Output

The formatter provides detailed feedback:

Success Output

✓ Formatted: src/app.js
✓ Formatted: src/components/Button.jsx
✓ Formatted: package.json
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
✅ Successfully formatted 3 files

Validation Output

Checking formatting...
[warn] src/app.js
[warn] src/utils/helper.ts
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⚠ Found 2 files that need formatting

Error Output

✗ Error: Cannot format src/broken.js
  SyntaxError: Unexpected token (line 15:8)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
❌ Failed to format 1 file

Error Handling

Common issues and solutions:

1. Prettier Not Found

# Install globally
npm install -g prettier

# Or use npx (no installation needed)
npx prettier --version

2. Syntax Errors

# Validate JavaScript syntax first
npx eslint src/app.js --fix-dry-run

# Check for parsing errors
npx prettier --debug-check src/app.js

3. Configuration Conflicts

# Find all config files
find . -name ".prettier*" -o -name "prettier.config.js"

# Use specific config
npx prettier --config ./custom-prettier.json --write src/

4. Permission Issues

# Check file permissions
ls -la src/app.js

# Fix permissions if needed
chmod u+w src/app.js

Resources

File Type Support

Configuration Options

{
  // Semicolons
  "semi": true,              // Add semicolons

  // Quotes
  "singleQuote": true,       // Use single quotes
  "jsxSingleQuote": false,   // JSX double quotes

  // Indentation
  "tabWidth": 2,             // Spaces per tab
  "useTabs": false,          // Use spaces

  // Line Length
  "printWidth": 100,         // Line wrap length
  "proseWrap": "preserve",   // Markdown wrapping

  // Trailing Commas
  "trailingComma": "es5",    // Valid in ES5

  // Brackets
  "bracketSpacing": true,    // { foo: bar }
  "bracketSameLine": false,  // JSX brackets

  // Arrow Functions
  "arrowParens": "avoid",    // x => x vs (x) => x

  // Formatting
  "htmlWhitespaceSensitivity": "css",
  "endOfLine": "lf",
  "embeddedLanguageFormatting": "auto"
}

Command Reference

# Basic formatting
prettier --write <file>           # Format file
prettier --check <file>           # Check if formatted
prettier --debug-check <file>     # Debug parse errors

# Multiple files
prettier --write "src/**/*.js"    # Glob pattern
prettier --write . --ignore-path .gitignore

# Configuration
prettier --config <path>          # Use specific config
prettier --no-config              # Ignore config files
prettier --find-config-path <file> # Show config used

# Output options
prettier --list-different         # List unformatted files
prettier --log-level debug        # Verbose output
prettier --no-color              # Disable colors

# Special options
prettier --require-pragma         # Only format with @format
prettier --insert-pragma          # Add @format comment
prettier --range-start 10 --range-end 50  # Partial format

Integration Examples

VS Code Integration:

{
  "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode",
  "editor.formatOnSave": true,
  "[javascript]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "esbenp.prettier-vscode"
  }
}

CI/CD Pipeline:

# GitHub Actions
- name: Check formatting
  run: npx prettier --check .

# Fail on unformatted code
- name: Enforce formatting
  run: |
    npx prettier --check . || {
      echo "Code is not formatted!"
      exit 1
    }

Pre-commit Hook:

#!/bin/sh
# .git/hooks/pre-commit

files=$(git diff --cached --name-only --diff-filter=ACMR | grep -E '\.(js|jsx|ts|tsx|json|css|md)$')

if [ -n "$files" ]; then
  npx prettier --write $files
  git add $files
fi

Performance Tips

1. Use .prettierignore to skip large/generated files
2. Cache node_modules in CI environments
3. Run in parallel for multiple files:

   find . -name "*.js" | xargs -P 4 -I {} npx prettier --write {}
   

4. Use --cache flag for incremental formatting:

   npx prettier --write --cache src/
   

Related Tools

• ESLint - Linting and code quality
• Stylelint - CSS/SCSS linting
• Markdownlint - Markdown style checking
• Black - Python formatting
• rustfmt - Rust formatting
• gofmt - Go formatting

Version: 1.0.0 Last Updated: 2025-12-12 Compatibility: Claude Code v1.5.0+