Doctor Explain

Doctor Explain

Explains React Doctor rules and edits doctor.config.* safely. Use this when a user wants to understand a rule or change which rules run — not for fixing diagnostics (that is the react-doctor skill / /doctor).

Triggers: /doctor-explain, /doctor-config, "why did this rule fire", "I disagree with this rule", "turn this rule off", "stop flagging X", "too noisy", "disable design rules".

Workflow

1. Identify the rule key from the diagnostic (e.g. react-doctor/no-array-index-as-key).
2. Explain it before changing anything:

npx react-doctor@latest rules explain react-doctor/no-array-index-as-key

3. Pick the narrowest control that matches the user's intent (see decision guide).
4. Apply it with a rules subcommand (edits your doctor.config.* or package.json#reactDoctor in place, preserving other fields and formatting).
5. Validate the change did what they wanted:

npx react-doctor@latest --verbose --diff

Commands

npx react-doctor@latest rules list                         # every rule + its effective severity
npx react-doctor@latest rules list --configured            # only what your config changed
npx react-doctor@latest rules list --category Performance   # filter by category
npx react-doctor@latest rules explain <rule>               # why it matters + how to configure
npx react-doctor@latest rules disable <rule>               # rule never runs
npx react-doctor@latest rules enable <rule>                # turn back on at its recommended severity
npx react-doctor@latest rules set <rule> warn              # off | warn | error
npx react-doctor@latest rules category "React Native" off   # whole category
npx react-doctor@latest rules ignore-tag design            # skip a rule family (design, test-noise, …)
npx react-doctor@latest rules unignore-tag design

Rule references accept the full key (react-doctor/no-danger), the bare id (no-danger), or a legacy key (react/no-danger).

Decision guide

Match the control to the intent — prefer the narrowest one:

• User disagrees with one rule / it's a false positive for them → rules disable <rule> (sets rules.<key> = "off"; the rule stops running everywhere). This is the default for "I don't want this rule".
• Rule is fine but wrong severity → rules set <rule> warn or rules set <rule> error.
• A disabled-by-default rule they want on → rules enable <rule>.
• A whole area is unwanted (e.g. all React Native rules) → rules category "<Category>" off.
• A behavioral family is noisy (design, test-noise, migration-hint) → rules ignore-tag <tag>.
• Keep it locally but hide from PR comment / score / CI gate only → do NOT disable. Edit surfaces in your config (surfaces.prComment.excludeRules, surfaces.score.excludeTags, surfaces.ciFailure.excludeCategories). The rule still shows in local cli output.

How the layers combine: ignore.tags disables every rule carrying that tag before linting, so a tagged rule stays off even if rules/categories set it to warn/error (a rule-level override cannot re-enable a tag-ignored rule). For rules that aren't tag-disabled, rules overrides categories overrides the rule's default. surfaces is visibility-only and never changes whether a rule runs.

Config shape

Config lives in doctor.config.ts (or .js/.mjs/.cjs/.json/.jsonc), or the reactDoctor key in package.json. The rules commands edit whichever exists — TS/JS edits preserve formatting (via magicast) — and create doctor.config.json when none does, stamping $schema:

// doctor.config.ts
export default {
  rules: { "react-doctor/no-array-index-as-key": "off" },
  categories: { "React Native": "warn" },
  ignore: { tags: ["design"] },
};

Educating the user

When explaining a rule, lead with the "Why it matters" guidance from rules explain and, when they want depth, the per-rule recipe at https://www.react.doctor/prompts/rules/<plugin>/<rule>.md. Only after they understand it should you offer to disable it — many "bad" rules are catching real issues.