Stop burning tokens on code review
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An engineering leader shares why AI-based code review tools like Cursor's BugBot and custom Claude code review skills became too slow, noisy, and expensive (hitting $1000/day in one case) for a team producing thousands of PRs a quarter. The fix that worked: converting team-specific coding rules from markdown guidelines into custom linters, which run in seconds, are deterministic, can run in-editor and on pre-commit hooks, and stop agents from ever pushing bad code. Several example custom lint rules are shared, covering design system consistency, logging, testing conventions, and prose quality.
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AI code review was too expensiveCustom linters are the perfect balanceWhy linters are perfectLiked this article? You’ll love the bookQuestions this post answers
Why is running Claude code review skills in GitHub Actions so expensive and noisy compared to running them locally?
Running Claude-based code review skills in CI produces overwhelming noise because the model treats every PR generically, backing minor style nitpicks with lengthy essays as if reviewing a stranger's code. One team hit roughly $1000 in a single day running these skills in GitHub Actions, versus getting clean, actionable output when the same skills were run locally on a developer's machine before pushing. Teams weighing AI code review costs against custom tooling can track real-world cost tradeoffs on daily.dev.
What are some examples of custom linter rules a team can create for enforcing coding conventions instead of using AI code review?
Examples include no-raw-color and no-hardcoded-mono for design system consistency, no-swallowed-errors for proper error handling, no-render-helpers for enforcing React component patterns, check-no-mock for discouraging mock-heavy tests, and a de-blab rule built on Vale that strips passive voice and AI-sounding phrasing from comments and docs. These were generated by pointing an AI tool at existing markdown style guides and asking it to convert deterministic rules into linters. Developers building custom lint rules to enforce team conventions can compare approaches on daily.dev.
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