wtf is clactor?

Clactor is a plugin for Claude Code that helps find and clean up messy patterns in large codebases written in Rust, Python, or TypeScript. It works by first scanning a project with a fast, purpose built Rust program that looks for specific kinds of code problems in a consistent, repeatable way. AI agents then review each thing the scanner found and decide whether it is worth fixing. Nothing gets changed automatically: a person has to approve each suggestion first. Only after approval does a separate AI agent make the actual code edit, then re-run the project's build, lint, and test commands to make sure the change did not break anything. The tool offers two main checks. The first, called dedup, looks for duplicated or copy-pasted code, including cases where the copies have since drifted apart, for example two pieces of code that were once identical but were only updated in one place, which can hide real bugs. It compares the structure of functions rather than just their exact text, so it can catch duplicates even after renaming or reformatting. The second check, called shape, looks for functions whose parameters are messy, either because they should be grouped into a single data structure that already exists, or because the same set of unrelated parameters keeps showing up across many functions and would be clearer as a new structure. Clactor understands the module boundaries of each supported language, such as recognizing a Rust project by its Cargo.toml file or a JavaScript project by its package.json file, and it can be installed directly as a Claude Code plugin without needing to have Rust installed, since it downloads a ready built version of the scanner. It can also be built and run locally from source for those who prefer that. A configuration file in the target project controls which folders to scan, which to skip, and which commands to run to verify a fix. The project is released under the MIT license.