I was randomly drifting through Github trending PHP repositories, and checking how popular projects use `rector.php`. A lot of them use it extensively, with [prepared sets](https://getrector.com/documentation/set-lists) and [even levels](https://getrector.com/documentation/levels).

What I didn't like to see is the *skip section*. It's like a baseline in PHPStan, but I take it really seriously. In 90 % of cases, it means something is broken in Rector and the user had to skip it to avoid unwanted changes over and over. 

Feeling the frustration, I thought: Is there something we can do about it?

Tomas Votruba

The author describes using AI agents (Claude Code) to extract hidden bug reports from open-source PHP projects' `rector.php` configuration files on GitHub. By analyzing the `withSkip()` sections of popular repositories, the agent identifies whether skipped rules represent Rector bugs or valid workarounds, then automatically creates PRs with test fixtures to fix them. The workflow scales from a single project to scraping top 300 Packagist dependents, aggregating the most-skipped rules into an HTML report. A key outcome is a new `withTypeGuardedClasses()` feature added to Rector that prevents BC-breaking type declaration changes on classes intended for extension, replacing dozens of manual skip entries with a clean configuration option.

How I use Agents to Extract Hidden Feedback from Github and Improved Rector

Discovering new Feature missing in Rector

Automate Sessions You'll get Back to Later