Technology2 min read

Show HN: Sphinx – a hook that quizzes you on your AI's code before shipping

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

Sphinx, a Git hook designed to enhance agent-assisted development, ensures thorough scrutiny of code before shipping by prompting developers with questions about functionality. This approach prevents issues due to misunderstandings or misinterpretations, making it a valuable tool for developers.

Key points

  • Sphinx is a valuable tool for developers to ensure thorough scrutiny of code before shipp…: Sphinx is a valuable tool for developers to ensure thorough scrutiny of code before shipping.
  • It prevents issues due to misunderstandings or misinterpretations, making it a valuable t…: It prevents issues due to misunderstandings or misinterpretations, making it a valuable tool for developers.
  • Sphinx is available as a free, open-source tool that can be integrated into existing deve…: Sphinx is available as a free, open-source tool that can be integrated into existing development environments.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

- Free

- FOSS

“Outsource your thinking,

not your understanding.”

— Sun Tzu

Sphinx is a Git hook for agent-assisted development. Before your agent’s code ships, it asks you a question about what that code actually does.

npm install -g sphinx-understandBuilt to run on minimal tokens, from your existing coding agent, OpenRouter, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.

Sphinx

Your webhook handler now saves the event ID before calling charge()

. Stripe times out and sends the same event again. What happens on the retry?

You

It runs twice, so the customer is charged twice.

Sphinx

Not quite. The retry finds the saved ID and returns 200 without charging. But that ID is stored before the charge succeeds. If charge()

fails, what does the next retry do?

You

It skips the charge, so the customer is never billed.

- 01

You push.

Or your agent does. Git pauses on the branches you protect.

- 02

Sphinx asks.

A reviewer that never saw your chat reads the diff and asks what the change does when things go wrong.

- 03

You answer.

Get it wrong and you learn why, then try a new scenario. Get it right and the push continues.

Works with Codex, Claude Code, Cursor, OpenCode, and Pi, or plain Git. Your answers never reach the coding agent, and .env

files and keys are never opened. In a hurry? sphinx yolo

lets pushes through, and every skip is logged.

Start in a minute.

# Node 22.19+ · macOS, Linux, or WSL

npm install -g sphinx-understand

sphinx install

# then push as usual

git push

sphinx install

connects Git and your coding agents and asks which model should review. Read the docs for everything else.

Original source: sphinx-six-theta.vercel.app

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