A fast, accurate, and extensible comment removal tool that uses tree-sitter for parsing, ensuring 100% accuracy in comment identification. Originally created to clean up AI-generated code with excessive comments, it now supports any language with a tree-sitter grammar through its flexible configuration system.

• 100% Accurate: Uses tree-sitter AST parsing to correctly identify comments
• No False Positives: Never removes comment-like content from strings
• Smart Preservation: Keeps important metadata, TODOs, FIXMEs, and language-specific patterns
• Parallel Processing: Multi-threaded processing for improved performance
• Extensible: Support any language with tree-sitter grammar through configuration
• Dynamic Grammar Loading: Load grammars from Git, local paths, or pre-compiled libraries
• Configuration System: TOML-based configuration for project-specific settings
• Smart Init Command: Automatically generate configuration based on your project
• Fast: Leverages tree-sitter's optimized parsing
• Safe: Dry-run mode to preview changes
• Built-in Benchmarking: Performance analysis and profiling tools

• Python (.py, .pyw, .pyi, .pyx, .pxd)
• JavaScript (.js, .jsx, .mjs, .cjs)
• TypeScript (.ts, .tsx, .mts, .cts, .d.ts, .d.mts, .d.cts)
• Rust (.rs)
• Go (.go)
• Java (.java)
• C (.c, .h)
• C++ (.cpp, .cc, .cxx, .hpp, .hxx)
• Ruby (.rb, .rake, .gemspec)
• YAML (.yml, .yaml)
• HCL/Terraform (.hcl, .tf, .tfvars)
• Makefile (Makefile, .mk)
• Shell/Bash (.sh, .bash, .zsh, .bashrc, .zshrc)
• Haskell (.hs, .lhs)
• JSON with Comments (.jsonc)

Through the configuration system, you can add support for any language with a tree-sitter grammar, including:

• Vue, Svelte, Astro (Web frameworks)
• Swift, Kotlin, Dart (Mobile development)
• Zig, Nim (Systems programming)
• Elixir, Clojure, Julia (Functional/Scientific)
• And many more...

brew tap goldziher/tap
brew install uncomment

cargo install uncomment

npm install -g uncomment-cli

pip install uncomment

git clone https://github.com/Goldziher/uncomment.git
cd uncomment
cargo install --path .

• For building from source: Rust 1.70+
• For npm/pip packages: Pre-built binaries are downloaded automatically

# Generate a configuration file for your project
uncomment init
# Remove comments from files
uncomment src/
# Preview changes without modifying files
uncomment --dry-run src/

# Generate a smart configuration based on your project
uncomment init
# Generate a comprehensive configuration with all supported languages
uncomment init --comprehensive
# Interactive configuration setup
uncomment init --interactive
# Use a custom configuration file
uncomment --config my-config.toml src/

The init command intelligently detects languages in your project:

# Smart detection - analyzes your project and includes only detected languages
$ uncomment init
Detected languages in your project:
- 150 rust files
- 89 typescript files
- 45 python files
- 12 vue files (requires custom grammar)
- 8 dockerfile files (requires custom grammar)
Generated .uncommentrc.toml with configurations for detected languages.
# Comprehensive mode - includes configurations for 25+ languages
$ uncomment init --comprehensive
Generated comprehensive configuration with all supported languages.
# Specify output location
$ uncomment init --output config/uncomment.toml
# Force overwrite existing configuration
$ uncomment init --force

# Remove comments from a single file
uncomment file.py
# Preview changes without modifying files
uncomment --dry-run file.py
# Process multiple files
uncomment src/*.py
# Remove documentation comments/docstrings
uncomment --remove-doc file.py
# Remove TODO and FIXME comments
uncomment --remove-todo --remove-fixme file.py
# Add custom patterns to preserve
uncomment --ignore-patterns "HACK" --ignore-patterns "WARNING" file.py
# Process entire directory recursively
uncomment src/
# Use parallel processing with 8 threads
uncomment --threads 8 src/
# Benchmark performance on a large codebase
uncomment benchmark --target /path/to/repo --iterations 3
# Profile performance with detailed analysis
uncomment profile /path/to/repo

• Comments containing ~keep
• TODO comments (unless --remove-todo)
• FIXME comments (unless --remove-fixme)
• Documentation comments (unless --remove-doc)

Python:

• Type hints: # type:, # mypy:
• Linting: # noqa, # pylint:, # flake8:, # ruff:
• Formatting: # fmt:, # isort:
• Other: # pragma:, # NOTE:

JavaScript/TypeScript:

• Type checking: @flow, @ts-ignore, @ts-nocheck
• Linting: eslint-disable, eslint-enable, biome-ignore
• Formatting: prettier-ignore
• Coverage: v8 ignore, c8 ignore, istanbul ignore
• Other: @jsx, @license, @preserve

Rust:

• Attributes and directives (preserved in comment form)
• Doc comments /// and //! (unless --remove-doc)
• Clippy directives: clippy::

Haskell:

• Comments: --
• Haddock: -- |, {-^ ... -}, {-| ... -} (unless --remove-doc)

YAML/HCL/Makefile:

• Standard comment removal while preserving file structure
• Supports both # and // style comments in HCL/Terraform

Uncomment uses a flexible TOML-based configuration system that allows you to customize behavior for your project.

Uncomment searches for configuration files in the following order:

1. Command-line specified config: --config path/to/config.toml
2. .uncommentrc.toml in the current directory
3. .uncommentrc.toml in parent directories (up to git root or filesystem root)
4. ~/.config/uncomment/config.toml (global configuration)
5. Built-in defaults

[global]
remove_todos = false
remove_fixme = false
remove_docs = false
preserve_patterns = ["IMPORTANT", "NOTE", "WARNING"]
use_default_ignores = true
respect_gitignore = true
[languages.python]
extensions = ["py", "pyw", "pyi"]
preserve_patterns = ["noqa", "type:", "pragma:", "pylint:"]
[patterns."tests/**/*.py"]
# Keep all comments in test files
remove_todos = false
remove_fixme = false
remove_docs = false

You can extend support to any language with a tree-sitter grammar:

# Add Swift support via Git
[languages.swift]
name = "Swift"
extensions = ["swift"]
comment_nodes = ["comment", "multiline_comment"]
preserve_patterns = ["MARK:", "TODO:", "FIXME:", "swiftlint:"]
[languages.swift.grammar]
source = { type = "git", url = "https://github.com/alex-pinkus/tree-sitter-swift", branch = "main" }
# Use a local grammar
[languages.custom]
name = "Custom Language"
extensions = ["custom"]
comment_nodes = ["comment"]
[languages.custom.grammar]
source = { type = "local", path = "/path/to/tree-sitter-custom" }
# Use a pre-compiled library
[languages.proprietary]
name = "Proprietary Language"
extensions = ["prop"]
comment_nodes = ["comment"]
[languages.proprietary.grammar]
source = { type = "library", path = "/usr/local/lib/libtree-sitter-proprietary.so" }

When multiple configuration files are found, they are merged with the following precedence (highest to lowest):

1. Command-line flags
2. Local .uncommentrc.toml files (closer to the file being processed wins)
3. Global configuration (~/.config/uncomment/config.toml)
4. Built-in defaults

Pattern-specific configurations override language configurations for matching files.

Unlike regex-based tools, uncomment uses tree-sitter to build a proper Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) of your code. This means it understands the difference between:

• Real comments vs comment-like content in strings
• Documentation comments vs regular comments
• Inline comments vs standalone comments
• Language-specific metadata that should be preserved

The tool is built with a modular, extensible architecture:

1. Language Registry: Manages both built-in and dynamically loaded languages
2. Grammar Manager: Handles loading grammars from Git, local paths, or compiled libraries
3. Configuration System: TOML-based hierarchical configuration with merging
4. AST Visitor: Traverses the tree-sitter AST to find comments
5. Preservation Engine: Applies rules to determine what to keep
6. Output Generator: Produces clean code with comments removed

• Dynamic Grammar Loading: Automatically downloads and compiles tree-sitter grammars
• Grammar Caching: Caches compiled grammars for performance
• Configuration Discovery: Searches for configs in project hierarchy
• Pattern Matching: File-pattern-specific configuration overrides

With the new configuration system, you can add languages without modifying code:

Add to your .uncommentrc.toml:

[languages.mylang]
name = "My Language"
extensions = ["ml", "mli"]
comment_nodes = ["comment"]
preserve_patterns = ["TODO", "FIXME"]
[languages.mylang.grammar]
source = { type = "git", url = "https://github.com/tree-sitter/tree-sitter-mylang", branch = "main" }

For frequently used languages:

1. Add the tree-sitter parser dependency to Cargo.toml
2. Register the language in src/grammar/mod.rs
3. Add language configuration in src/languages/registry.rs

Add to your .pre-commit-config.yaml:

repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/Goldziher/uncomment
    rev: v2.4.0
    hooks:
      - id: uncomment

Add to your lefthook.yml:

pre-commit:
  commands:
    uncomment:
      run: uncomment {staged_files}
      stage_fixed: true

For both hooks, install uncomment via pip:

pip install uncomment

While slightly slower than regex-based approaches due to parsing overhead, the tool is very fast and scales well with parallel processing:

• Small files (<1000 lines): ~20-30ms
• Large files (>10000 lines): ~100-200ms

Performance scales excellently with multiple threads:

Benchmarks run on a large enterprise codebase with 5,000 mixed language files

Use the built-in tools to measure performance on your specific codebase:

# Basic benchmark
uncomment benchmark --target /path/to/repo
# Detailed benchmark with multiple iterations
uncomment benchmark --target /path/to/repo --iterations 5 --threads 8
# Memory and performance profiling
uncomment profile /path/to/repo

The accuracy gained through AST parsing is worth the small performance cost, and parallel processing makes it suitable for even the largest codebases.

MIT