---
name: "pccritic"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "pkgconf"
version: "3.0.10-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pccritic"
---

# pccritic(1)

a quality scorer for pkg-config files

## NAME

**pccritic** – a quality scorer for pkg-config files

## SYNOPSIS

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

## DESCRIPTION

**pccritic** inspects [pc(5)](/pc/5.md) 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)](/pkgconf/1.md) would resolve it. A file that [pkgconf(1)](/pkgconf/1.md) 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* finding, 10 for a *major* finding, 4 for a *minor* finding, and 1 for an *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**

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

- **--version**

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

- **--help**

  Print a short usage summary to standard output and exit.

- **--quiet**

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

- **--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**\[=*when*\]

  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**=*varname*=*value*

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

## 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

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

[pkgconf(1)](/pkgconf/1.md), [pc(5)](/pc/5.md)