Lexi is a GitHub action that reports readability metrics for Markdown files in your pull requests. Use these metrics to help you understand how changes impact the readability of your documentation. Lexi reports an overall readability score that is calculated based on a scaled combination of the following readability metrics:
- Flesch Reading Ease
- Gunning Fog Index
- Automated Readability Index (ARI)
- Dale-Chall Readability Score
- Coleman–Liau Index
Reports describe the overall change to each file in a pull request, and also the impact the edits make to the documentation set as a whole.
- Overall readability: describes the readability of all the documentation in your repository, along with the scores and degree of change for each file that was edited in the pull request.
- Detailed metrics: describes all available metrics for each file that was edited in the pull request.
- Averages: describes the overall readability of all the documentation in your repository for each available metric.
- Metrics targets: describes the range and ideal score for each readability metric.
Overall readability score: 20.18 (🟢 +0.97)
File Readability README.md 22.36 (🟢 +3.86) View detailed metrics
🟢 - Shows an increase in readability 🔴 - Shows a decrease in readability
File Readability FRE GF ARI CLI DCRS README.md 22.36 44.11 16.67 28.7 11.85 7.66 🟢 +3.86 🟢 +2.03 🟢 +0.75 🟢 +2.2 🔴 -0.7 🟢 +0.01 Averages:
Readability FRE GF ARI CLI DCRS Average 20.18 14 16.94 19.17 15.11 9.52 🟢 +0.97 🟢 +0.51 🟢 +0.19 🟢 +0.55 🔴 -0.17 🟢 +0 View metric targets
Metric Range Ideal score Flesch Reading Ease 100 (very easy read) to 0 (extremely difficult read) 60 Gunning Fog 6 (very easy read) to 17 (extremely difficult read) 8 or less Auto. Read. Index 6 (very easy read) to 14 (extremely difficult read) 8 or less Coleman Liau Index 6 (very easy read) to 17 (extremely difficult read) 8 or less Dale-Chall Readability 4.9 (very easy read) to 9.9 (extremely difficult read) 6.9 or less
| Name | Necessity | Description |
|---|---|---|
github-token |
Required | Use this token to post the report comment to pull requests. The GitHub Actions token can be used with ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}. |
glob |
Required | Use this pattern to match Markdown files you want to analyse. |
name: Report readability
# This action only works on pull request events
on: pull_request
jobs:
report-readability:
name: Report readability
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout repo
uses: actions/checkout@v2
- uses: Rebilly/lexi@v1
with:
github-token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
glob: '**/*.md'| command | description |
|---|---|
test |
Run the unit tests. |
lint |
Run eslint on all files. |
format |
Run prettier on all files. |
build |
Build the dist file. You are required to run this locally in order to build the dist before opening a PR. |
run:local:report |
Run the action on two local folders, for testing and development. The first argument is the old ("base branch") folder and the sedcond argument is the new ("head branch") folder. For example yarn run:local:report ./test-data/old ./test-data/new. |
run:local:debugfile |
Display what the program parses from a single file, after stripping all non-wanted items from the file, and before rating the readability. For example yarn run:local:debugfile ./test-data/new/test-document.md. |
playground:dev |
Open the playground in local development mode for testing readability scores. |
When developing the action, it may be useful to run the action locally rather than pushing a branch and running your development version on GitHub.
To test the action locally, execute the run:local:report command. This reports readability on two different directories, as though they are in one pull request.
For example: yarn run:local:report ./test-data/old ./test-data/new
To experiment with this tool in your web browser, and get real-time readability metric data as you edit a Markdown file, try out the playground.