# Install wartremover with Homebrew

Flexible Scala code linting tool. Version 3.6.1 via Homebrew; verified 2026-07-01.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:wartremover
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install wartremover
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:wartremover
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 3.6.1
- **Source summary:** Flexible Scala code linting tool
- **Homepage:** <https://www.wartremover.org/>
- **Repository:** <https://github.com/wartremover/wartremover>
- **Last updated:** 2026-07-01T10:37:53Z
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- wartremover (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 3.6.1
## Project history and usage

WartRemover is a Scala linting tool focused on compile-time detection of language features and idioms that a project wants to forbid. Its package-nerd identity is unusually direct: individual checks are called "warts", and users opt into sets of warts as errors or warnings in sbt, scalac, or the standalone command-line tool.

### Project history

The public GitHub repository was created on January 5, 2013. Brian McKenna's 2013 write-up for WartRemover 0.4 described a rewrite from a linter for features he considered bad into a more flexible framework for lint rules over Scala compiler trees, with wrappers for macros, the command line, and the compiler plugin.

The project later standardized around the wartremover organization and the wartremover.org documentation site. Current documentation presents the sbt plugin as the normal entry point, while still documenting use as a command-line tool, a manually configured compiler plugin, and a macro-derived checker.

### Adoption history

WartRemover occupies the compiler-plugin side of the Scala linting ecosystem. Scala Center's Scalafix documentation compares it with Scalafix, Scalastyle, and IntelliJ inspections, noting that WartRemover has more linter rules out of the box than Scalafix but does not automatically fix code.

### How it is used

Typical use is to add the sbt plugin and then configure `wartremoverErrors` or `wartremoverWarnings` in `build.sbt`. Projects commonly enable a stable or custom subset of warts, suppress checks with annotations for exceptional cases, or exclude generated source directories.

### Why package nerds care

For package managers, WartRemover represents the Scala compiler-plugin era of code-quality tooling: it is not just a formatter or external scanner, but a package that participates in compilation and can make disallowed constructs fail the build.

### Timeline

- 2013-01-05: Public GitHub repository created.
- 2013: WartRemover 0.4 write-up describes the flexible rule/traverser design.
- 2020s: Documentation continues to support sbt, command-line, manual compiler-plugin, and macro-based usage.

### Related projects

- Scalafix, Scalastyle, and IntelliJ Scala inspections cover adjacent Scala linting and refactoring workflows, while WartRemover's distinctive niche is compiler-driven configurable warts.

### Sources

- <https://api.github.com/repos/wartremover/wartremover>
- <https://brianmckenna.org/blog/wartremover_point_four>
- <https://scalacenter.github.io/scalafix/docs/users/related-projects.html>
- <https://www.wartremover.org/doc/install-setup.html>


## Security Notes

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

- **Geiger risk:** green / low
- narrow executable package without higher-risk signals


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/wartremover.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/wartremover.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- cross-ecosystem install command graph