Overreach

Your AI wrote 2,000 lines. You have 10 minutes to review it.

Overreach tells you where to look first. You asked for a login form — it shows you the Stripe key, the checkout endpoint, and the cron job your AI agent added without asking. Deterministic, evidence-backed, no AI opinions.

See it

$ npx -y overreach demo

  Overreach — AI PR Review
  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
  You asked: "add a login form to the settings page"
  5 files changed · 4 in scope · 1 outside scope

  Findings

  ✗ New environment variable: STRIPE_SECRET
    .env.example
  ✗ New API endpoint: /api/checkout
    src/app/api/checkout/route.ts
  ✗ Scheduled job added
    cron.config.ts
  ⚠ File outside scope: cron.config.ts
    cron.config.ts
  ⚠ Added dependency: stripe
    package.json

  Heads Up

  → New API route added but no test file updated
  → Dependencies changed but lockfile not updated
  → 3 source files changed but no tests updated

  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────
  5 findings · review carefully · deterministic

You asked for a login form. Overreach found a payment system. Review those files before you merge.

Works with

• Claude Code
• Cursor
• Codex
• GitHub Copilot
• Windsurf
• Aider

Any tool that writes code from a prompt. Overreach reviews the output, not the tool.

What it catches

Unexpected changes (things the AI did that you didn't ask for)

Every finding is deterministic — derived from your prompt and the diff by set arithmetic. No AI opinions. Just: "you asked for X, the diff also contains Y, and Y wasn't in X."

Heads Up (things you probably need to check)

Overreach also scans for practical cross-file issues that developers miss during review:

These aren't scope creep — they're the stuff you forget at 2am and find out about in production.

Why deterministic

Most AI code reviewers use another AI to judge your code. That means opinions, hallucinations, and results that change between runs.

Overreach doesn't do that.

It runs a 3-stage pipeline:

1. Extract scope — One cheap LLM call reads your prompt and extracts what you authorized (files, deps, env vars, endpoints). Or skip the LLM entirely with zero-key mode.

2. Parse the diff — Regex-based extraction. No LLM. Finds every file changed, dependency added, env var set, endpoint created. Runs in milliseconds.

3. Compare — actual − authorized = findings. Pure set arithmetic. Everything in the diff that wasn't in your prompt is a finding.

Stages 2 and 3 are pure functions — same input, same output, every time. No inference, no model drift.

CI Gate

Use Overreach as a GitHub Action to block AI scope creep on every PR:

# .github/workflows/overreach.yml
- uses: Naveja00/Overreach@v1

Exit code 1 when unexpected changes are found — the AI agent can't skip this check.

MCP Server (for AI agents)

AI agents can use Overreach to check their own work before committing:

# Claude Code
claude mcp add overreach -- npx -y overreach --serve

# Claude Desktop / Cursor — add to MCP config:
{ "mcpServers": { "overreach": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "overreach", "--serve"] } } }

Internals

API key (optional)

Overreach auto-detects your AI provider:

CLI flags

overreach                          # Interactive mode (recommended)
overreach demo                     # Zero-key demo with sample diff
overreach init                     # Install as pre-commit hook

git diff | overreach --prompt "…"  # Pipe a diff with explicit prompt
overreach --diff file.diff --prompt "…"   # Read diff from file
overreach --scope scope.json --prompt "…" # Skip LLM, use pre-extracted scope
overreach --json                   # Machine-readable JSON output
overreach --serve                  # Start as MCP server

JSON output

Add --json for structured output (CI, piping, integrations):

{
  "scope": { "files_allowed": [], "features_allowed": [] },
  "actual": { "files_changed": [], "symbols_added": [] },
  "findings": [
    {
      "kind": "scope.env",
      "detail": "New environment variable STRIPE_SECRET not in authorized scope",
      "file": ".env.example",
      "severity": "high",
      "evidence": "STRIPE_SECRET"
    }
  ],
  "scope_creep_score": "HIGH",
  "blast_radius": {
    "warnings": [
      {
        "pattern": "route-no-test",
        "message": "New API route added but no test file updated",
        "files": ["src/app/api/checkout/route.ts"],
        "suggestion": "Add tests for the new endpoint"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Finding kinds

Telemetry

Overreach sends anonymous usage pings: counts and enums only (score, findings count, OS, version) — never code, prompts, file paths, or diff content. A one-time notice is printed on your first review. Opt out any time:

export OVERREACH_TELEMETRY=0   # or DO_NOT_TRACK=1

Tests

npm test    # 241 deterministic assertions, zero API calls

Links

• npm
• GitHub
• Issues & Feedback

Install

# Just run it — zero setup
cd your-project
npx -y overreach

That's it. It auto-detects your changes, asks what you told the AI to do, and shows the review. No config files, no flags to memorize.

Or install it permanently:

npm install -g overreach

# Pipe a diff with an explicit prompt
git diff | overreach --prompt "add user authentication"

# Install as a pre-commit hook
overreach init

No API key? No problem. Without a key, Overreach regex-parses your prompt offline. Instant, free, fully deterministic.

License

MIT — free and open source.