Programming Advisor

About

Programming Advisor acts as a 'reinventing the wheel' detector for Claude Code, helping developers navigate the critical build vs. buy decision. By performing real-time searches for mature libraries, APIs, and frameworks, it prevents unnecessary 'vibe coding' that consumes excessive tokens and creates long-term maintenance burdens. The skill provides detailed comparison tables, token burn estimates, and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis, ensuring you only write custom code when it truly adds unique value to your project.

Key Features

• Ready-to-use integration plans for recommended existing solutions
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) analysis for multi-year projects
• Comprehensive comparison tables for cost, setup, and maintenance
• 10 GitHub stars
• Detailed token burn and development effort estimation
• Automated search for npm, pip, cargo packages and SaaS alternatives

Use Cases

• Finding existing open-source libraries for common tasks like PDF generation or date manipulation
• Calculating the hidden long-term costs of custom-built software versus managed SaaS solutions
• Evaluating whether to build a custom authentication system or use a service like Auth0 or Supabase