Release notes

36c4608 (2026-11-06)Copy Anchor Link

New FeaturesCopy Anchor Link

• Rewrite rules can now add #include directives to the files they edit with bronto::include(header). Write the header in angle brackets, as in "<vector>", to get a system include. Any other spelling gives a quoted include. The header can be any constant string expression that bronto::eval accepts, including values bound at each rewrite site. Headers that are invalid or can't be evaluated are reported with clear diagnostics.
• apply, format, and Compiler Explorer mode now insert the headers that rewrites request, following the project's clang-format include style. Existing includes are never re-sorted.
• When building with Bazel, run --include now looks up the defines and include directories of the cc_library providing each forced-include header and applies them to every translation unit. It also builds any generated headers those libraries need.
• Added a "union" strategy for merging fossil records, which succeeds when overlapping edits are identical.
• Added a local MCP server that reports bronto-refactor progress to AI agents such as Claude.

Bug FixesCopy Anchor Link

• A pattern that uses a parameter twice no longer matches arguments that differ only in an operator, member, cast type, or character value. Before, the second argument was silently dropped.
• Fixed crashes when matching fold expressions, const member calls used inside larger expressions, and explicit conversion operator calls.
• Implicit-conversion patterns now match return p; for pointers and other scalars, and no longer treat direct-initialization such as T x(p) or T x{p} as an implicit conversion.
• Fixed BRONTO_REWRITE_MACRO patterns: fixed identifiers and keywords now match, and literals must match their exact spelling.
• Deleting a macro expansion that forms a whole statement now also removes its semicolon.
• Hoisting and statement deletion now add braces wherever they are needed: inside switch cases ahead of a later label, under unbraced if and loop bodies, after macros that end a statement, and when deleting calls to empty functions. This prevents code that fails to compile or silently changes behavior. Empty braces replace a bare ; where a statement is required.
• Empty replacements that are an operand of a comma expression can now be deleted where the result is unaffected.
• Replacement and inlined functions returning void that contain an early return are now rejected instead of producing incorrect code. A return inside a lambda no longer counts as an early exit.
• Inlining calls with template arguments that aren't written in the source, such as S<3>::f() or deduced value parameters, no longer crashes. Unsupported cases are refused with a warning.
• Hoisted declarations are now spelled with the types written at the call site, fixing declarations that didn't compile when the pattern named a template parameter through a member.
• Substituted template type, value, and template-template parameters, along with pack expansions, now render correctly in replacements.
• Fixed a crash when rendering nested pack expansions of different lengths.
• Fixed parenthesization that could produce --1 from -f(-1), or drop parentheses in -(m - n) for classes with destructors and for comparisons rewritten through operator<=>.
• Declaration rewrites whose replacement declares a class-type variable without an initializer now keep the original initializer.
• Separate records inserting text at the same offset, or inside another record's replacement, are now reported as conflicts instead of being combined into invalid code. This fixes chained inlinings.
• Choosing which conflicting edit survives is now consistent from run to run, and conflict reports label insertions correctly.
• Cached results reused with --temp-dir now account for force-included headers, so stale results are no longer returned.
• In-process formatting with a named style such as llvm now uses that style instead of falling back to Google.
• The target and arguments settings for Bazel in .brontorc no longer fail with a confusing "unknown variant" error.
• count no longer accepts and silently ignores --include.
• Abseil ABSL_REFACTOR_INLINE patterns are recognized reliably again.

874707b (2026-10-07)Copy Anchor Link