Prior Art — How It Differs
Import-boundary enforcement is well-trodden ground: dependency-cruiser, eslint-plugin-boundaries, Nx module boundaries, and sheriff all draw lines through your import graph and fail CI when a line is crossed. They are mature tools — if all you need is import rules, evaluate them directly. This page states the design difference, not a scorecard.
Where blueprint overlaps
On the lint layer, blueprint does the same job those tools do: one-way layer flow, entry-only module boundaries, package and global ownership — compiled into an ESLint flat config with an embedded plugin. Running blueprint next to an incumbent structure linter has been field-tested; see Field-Tested Setups.
Where it differs
The difference is not the lint — it's everything else the same source compiles into:
The same blueprint.config.mjs also becomes | Which an import-linter alone does not produce |
|---|---|
A human handbook (docs/architecture-handbook.md) | The "why" stays in sync with the rules by construction — it cannot drift |
Ground rules for AI agents (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, Cursor, Windsurf…) | The agent holds the rules before it places a file, not after lint fails |
A CI workflow plus read-only inspect / deps runtimes | Nine finding kinds lint cannot see (undeclared folders, cycles, missing entries…) and a blast-radius query |
A brownfield authoring flow (survey → playbook → baseline ratchet) | Adopting on a legacy repo is a first-class, evidence-driven path — not "turn it on and drown in red" |
The bet behind that design: with AI agents writing a growing share of the code, rules that live only in lint arrive after the file already landed in the wrong place. The same rules need to sit in the agent's context up front — and that only works if the contract and the lint can never disagree. One source, translated everywhere, is the mechanism.
Honest scope
We have not benchmarked those tools feature by feature, and this page claims no lint-layer superiority. If your need is purely an import graph with rules, any of the tools above may serve you well. blueprint earns its place when the handbook, the AI agent, and CI must stay in lockstep with the rules — because they are the same thing.