Code Climate open-sources its code-testing tools, launches a command-line interface

Code Climate is pulling a gutsy move today. The startup is open-sourcing key parts of its proprietary software for performing tests on source code to determine its quality.

No longer will developers be limited by the set of programming languages and frameworks that Code Climate supports. Now you can call on new engines for CoffeeScript, CSS stylesheets, Go, JavaScript, PHP, or Ruby, or write an engine for any other language based on a new specification, and then call on Code Climate’s servers to run checks.

Code Climate today is also coming out with a new open-source command-line interface (CLI) through which developers can run checks locally on their own computers. In other words, you don’t have to upload your work to a remote repository like GitHub or Bitbucket to check your code if you don’t feel like it.

“You can use that [the CLI] entirely for free, so it’s a pretty big shift,” Code Climate founder and chief executive Bryan Helmkamp told VentureBeat in an interview.

Not only is this big for the startup, but the changes could pose a challenge to other code-testing outfits, like bitHound, Codacy, and Scrutinizer.

Above: The Code Climate team. Helmkamp is third from right.

Image Credit: Code Climate

You might think that releasing valuable technology under an open-source license would be bad for generating revenue, but Helmkamp isn’t worried about that. If anything, he said, greater revenue will come in, as more people start to rely on the startup’s technology.

Currently, 50,000 developers use Code Climate to analyze around 700 billion lines of code on any given weekday, Helmkamp wrote in a blog post on today’s news.

New York-based Code Climate announced a $2 million funding round in September.

The new tools are available here.