Atlas empowers Perl developers in 2026 to meticulously self-review uncommitted diffs, catching mistakes before they reach a reviewer or CI. It integrates directly with your Perl toolchain, allowing you to run `prove (Test2::V0)` for tests and `perltidy` for formatting, all within your terminal.
How do I review my Perl diff with Atlas?
Atlas helps Perl developers in 2026 produce and read their working diffs directly in the terminal, ensuring no change goes unnoticed. It leverages `git` to surface the raw diff, allowing you to read every changed file in full, not just the lines you remember touching. This comprehensive view prevents 1-line errors from slipping through.
Atlas integrates with your `git` working tree to provide a unified diff for every file edit. When you are self-reviewing your Perl code, Atlas can read the current `git status` and the raw diff, presenting it for your end-to-end review. This means you can examine every modification across your `.pm` modules and `t/` test files. Unlike simply recalling files you have edited, Atlas ensures you read each changed file in its entirety, checking the change against its surroundings. This is crucial because a standard diff often hides the untouched context, which Atlas helps you overcome by allowing a full file view. Atlas's terminal-native TUI, rendered with SolidJS through the OpenTUI renderer, provides a clear, readable interface for this review process, even offering a charcoal-and-blue default theme for optimal readability.
How do I find debugging code in my Perl diff?
Before committing your Perl changes, Atlas helps you find and remove debugging leftovers like temporary logging or skipped tests. In 2026, Atlas can `grep` through your uncommitted diff for common patterns, ensuring your `.pm` modules and `t/` test files are clean. This prevents 0-day debugging code from reaching production.
Atlas can execute `bash` commands, including `grep`, to search your working diff for common debugging artifacts. For Perl development, this means you can ask Atlas to search for `print STDERR`, `warn`, `die`, `use Data::Dumper;`, or commented-out blocks within your `.pm` files or `t/` test scripts. It can also identify skipped tests, such as `skip_all` or `todo` blocks in your `Test2::V0` test files, ensuring all tests are active before commit. Atlas's ability to search code with hybrid semantic and keyword retrieval, fused by reciprocal rank fusion, makes this process highly effective, indexing code by AST declarations using tree-sitter for precise results. This capability ensures that temporary debugging statements, often introduced during development, are systematically identified and removed from your Perl codebase.
How do I revert unwanted Perl changes with Atlas?
If you discover an unwanted change in your Perl diff, Atlas provides a robust session revert mechanism to restore from a snapshot. This feature, available in 2026, ensures that any accidental edits to your `.pm` modules or `t/` test files can be undone safely, preventing a half-written turn from being rolled back mid-flight.
Atlas snapshots file changes as `git` patches, allowing edits to be diffed and rolled back. When you need to revert a change in your Perl project, Atlas's session revert flow restores your working tree from a previous snapshot. This is a critical safety feature: the revert process refuses to run on a busy session, preventing a half-written turn from being rolled back mid-flight and potentially corrupting your work. This ensures that if Atlas made an edit to a `.pm` module or a `t/` test file that you deem incorrect during your self-review, you can confidently undo it. The VCS layer surfaces the raw diff, and every edit Atlas made is recoverable, providing a secure environment for iterative Perl development.
How do I run Perl tests and format code with Atlas?
Before committing your Perl code, Atlas can run your `Test2::V0` test suite with `prove` and format your files with `perltidy`. In 2026, Atlas can execute these essential `bash` commands, ensuring your `.pm` modules and `t/` test files meet quality and style standards. This step is crucial for maintaining a clean and functional Perl codebase.
Atlas can execute `bash` commands, allowing you to integrate your standard Perl development workflow directly into the agent. For self-review, this means you can ask Atlas to run `prove -lr t/` to execute your `Test2::V0` test suite. Atlas will present the TAP output, allowing you to verify all tests pass. Similarly, Atlas can run `perltidy` on your changed files. This ensures that your `.pm` modules and other Perl scripts adhere to your project's `.perltidyrc` configuration, making the diff clean and focused solely on functional changes. Atlas can even be configured to run `perltidy` on changed files so the diff matches your `.perltidyrc` before it commits. Atlas connects to Model Context Protocol servers and exposes their tools to the agent, making these integrations direct.
What safety features does Atlas offer for Perl development?
Atlas provides multiple safety features for Perl developers in 2026, ensuring that code changes are permission-gated and transparent. Every Atlas tool call is permission-gated against allow, ask, and deny rules, and it drafts a plan in a read-only agent before execution. This prevents 1-click mistakes.
Atlas is designed with safety at its core for Perl development. Every tool call, whether it is running `prove`, `perltidy`, or modifying a `.pm` file, is permission-gated. You can configure Atlas with `allow`, `ask`, or `deny` rules, giving you granular control over its actions. Before making any changes, Atlas drafts a plan in a read-only plan agent and asks for your approval before switching to a build agent. This "plan and ask" approach ensures you understand and approve the intended modifications to your Perl codebase. Furthermore, Atlas computes a unified diff for every file edit it proposes and surfaces it for your approval before writing, giving you a final chance to review its work on your `.pm` modules or `t/` test files. Atlas's ability to read `git` branches, status, and diffs, and to stage and create commits on your behalf, is always subject to these explicit approvals.
Step by step
- 01Ask Atlas to show the working diff: `atlas bash git diff`
- 02Review each changed Perl file in full, for example: `atlas read lib/MyModule.pm`
- 03Grep for debugging leftovers in Perl files: `atlas bash grep -E 'print STDERR|warn|die|use Data::Dumper;' $(git diff --name-only)`
- 04If a change is unwanted, revert it using Atlas's session revert: `atlas session revert`
- 05Run Perl tests with `prove (Test2::V0)`: `atlas bash prove -lr t/`
- 06Run `perltidy` on changed Perl files: `atlas bash perltidy $(git diff --name-only --diff-filter=M | grep '\.pm$')`
- 07Review the final diff after formatting to ensure it matches your `.perltidyrc`: `atlas bash git diff`
- 08Commit your Perl changes, Atlas will surface the diff for approval: `atlas commit`
Frequently asked questions
- How does Atlas help Perl developers review code?
- Atlas helps Perl developers review code by reading `git` diffs, allowing full file context review, and integrating with `bash` to run tools like `grep`, `prove (Test2::V0)`, and `perltidy` on uncommitted changes.
- Can Atlas run `prove` for my Perl tests?
- Yes, Atlas can run `prove -lr t/` for your Perl `Test2::V0` test suite via `bash`, displaying the TAP output directly in the terminal for your review before committing.
- How do I format Perl code with `perltidy` using Atlas?
- You can ask Atlas to run `perltidy` on your changed Perl files using `atlas bash perltidy $(git diff --name-only --diff-filter=M | grep '\.pm$')`, ensuring your code adheres to your `.perltidyrc` before commit.
- What if Atlas makes a mistake in my Perl code?
- If Atlas makes an unwanted change to your Perl code, you can use `atlas session revert` to restore from a previous snapshot. Atlas also surfaces a unified diff for approval before writing any changes.
- Does Atlas support Perl modules and CPAN distributions?
- Yes, Atlas works across CPAN distributions, `.pm` modules, and TAP-based test suites. It can read your packages, `@EXPORT` lists, and modules pulled in by `cpanm`.
- How does Atlas ensure safety when modifying Perl files?
- Atlas ensures safety by permission-gating every tool call, drafting plans in a read-only agent for approval, and surfacing a unified diff for every file edit before writing to your Perl codebase.
- Can Atlas find debugging statements in my Perl diff?
- Yes, Atlas can use `grep` via `bash` to search your uncommitted Perl diff for common debugging leftovers like `print STDERR`, `warn`, `die`, or commented-out blocks in your `.pm` and `t/` files.
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