PCCRITIC(1) General Commands Manual PCCRITIC(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

`pccritic` — a quality scorer for pkg-config files

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

`pccritic` \[`options`] `module-or-file ...`

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

`pccritic` inspects [pc(5)](/man/os/pkgconf/pc.5) files and reports quality findings, assigning each file a score from 0 to 100 and a letter grade from A to F. It is intended both as an interactive aid for package authors and as a check that can be run in continuous integration.

Each command-line argument is treated as a target. If an argument contains a slash or ends in .pc it is interpreted as a path to a file; otherwise it is resolved as a module name from the search path, exactly as [pkgconf(1)](/man/os/pkgconf/pkgconf.1) would resolve it. A file that [pkgconf(1)](/man/os/pkgconf/pkgconf.1) refuses to load because it omits a required field is still scanned directly so that the most broken files can be scored.

Findings are classified by severity. The score begins at 100 and each finding subtracts a fixed penalty: 25 for a [*critical*](#critical) finding, 10 for a [*major*](#major) finding, 4 for a [*minor*](#minor) finding, and 1 for an [*info*](#info) finding. The result is clamped to the range 0 to 100. Grades are assigned as A for 90 and above, B for 80, C for 70, D for 60, and F below 60.

The checks cover required and recommended metadata, version sanity, relocatability of the `libdir` and `includedir` variables, hygiene of the `Cflags` and `Libs` fields, the `Requires` and `Requires.private` relationship, and basic file-formatting style.

The `options` are as follows:

[`--about`](#about)

Print the version number, the Copyright notice, and the license of the `pccritic` program to standard output and exit.

[`--version`](#version)

Print the version number of the `pccritic` program to standard output and exit.

[`--help`](#help)

Print a short usage summary to standard output and exit.

[`--quiet`](#quiet)

Print only the score and grade for each target, one per line, instead of the full list of findings.

[`--min-score`](#min-score) `n`

Exit with a non-zero status if any target scores below `n`. This is useful for failing a continuous-integration job when a file's quality regresses below a threshold.

[`--color`](#color)\[=`when`]

Control colorized output. `when` may be `auto` (the default), `always`, or `never`. When `auto`, color is enabled only when standard output is a terminal and the `NO_COLOR` environment variable is not set. Giving `--color` without a value is equivalent to `always`.

[`--define-variable`](#define-variable)=`varname`=`value`

Define `varname` as `value`. This affects how variables in the inspected file are expanded.

# [EXIT STATUS](#EXIT_STATUS)

`pccritic` exits 0 on success. It exits non-zero if a target could not be loaded, if the command line is invalid, or if `--min-score` was given and a target scored below the threshold.

# [EXAMPLES](#EXAMPLES)

Score an installed module by name:

`$ pccritic zlib`

Score a file before installation and fail if it grades below a C:

`$ pccritic --min-score 70 ./mylib.pc`

Summarize every file in a directory:

`$ pccritic --quiet /usr/lib/pkgconfig/*.pc`

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[pkgconf(1)](/man/os/pkgconf/pkgconf.1), [pc(5)](/man/os/pkgconf/pc.5)

June 28, 2026 Linux 4.19.0-gvisor

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Document: pccritic(1) from pkgconf 3.0.8-r0 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://github.com/pkgconf/pkgconf