check_before_building
Search GitHub, npm, and Python for maintained projects matching your planned build. Get verified candidates and extend them instead of rebuilding from scratch.
Instructions
Run this BEFORE scaffolding a new project or a substantial new module. Searches GitHub, npm, and Python repos for existing projects that already do what's being proposed and filters out abandoned/unmaintained results. Returns verified-maintained candidates plus scoring instructions — the calling agent (you) must then judge semantic relevance itself and present at most 3 real alternatives with a concrete 'extend this instead of rebuilding' suggestion for each, per the returned instructions. REQUIRES you to supply keywords yourself (see its field description) — do not guess this tool can extract good search terms on its own; generic terms like 'mcp'/'agent'/'server' will bury results in noise.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| keywords | Yes | REQUIRED: 3-4 precise search terms YOU infer from the description, using your own understanding of what the user actually means — do this especially when the description is vague, informal, or from a non-native speaker. Pick the concrete domain noun a maintainer would actually put in their README, not a generic category word: e.g. for 'thing that checks my code doesn't have secret keys by mistake' prefer ["git", "secrets", "detect", "leak"] over ["secret", "scanner", "detect", "git"] — 'scanner' is broad enough to pull in unrelated security-tool listicles, while 'leak'/'secrets' matches how gitleaks/trufflehog actually describe themselves. Avoid generic tooling-ecosystem words (mcp, agent, server, tool, app) unless the description has nothing more specific — they return noise (awesome-lists, unrelated MCP servers) rather than real competitors. Critically, favor the word a maintainer would use to describe WHAT THE TOOL IS over the word describing the USER'S PROBLEM: a real 'pretty JSON in the terminal' tool likely calls itself a 'viewer' or 'processor', not a 'pretty-printer'/'colorizer'; a real static-site link checker likely says it validates 'rendered HTML', not 'static site alt-text'. If your first guess doesn't match, mentally simulate the README of the tool you're picturing and pull words straight from that sentence. | |
| description | Yes | Plain-language description of the project/module about to be built — what it does, not how. The more specific, the better the match quality. |