Counting Lines of Code with cloc

cloc counts source lines of code across a project, separating code lines from comment lines and blank lines. For most reporting purposes - cost estimation, change tracking, and audits - only the code line count matters.

Install it with Homebrew on macOS, APT on Debian/Ubuntu, or Chocolatey on Windows:

brew install cloc          # macOS
sudo apt install cloc      # Debian / Ubuntu
choco install cloc         # Windows

Run it from the project root and exclude dependency and generated directories. Without exclusions, vendored libraries and build artifacts inflate the count. The directories to exclude depend on the ecosystem.

For Node.js and TypeScript projects:

cloc . --exclude-dir=node_modules,dist,.next,.nuxt,.svelte-kit,build

For PHP projects using Composer or Laravel:

cloc . --exclude-dir=vendor,storage,.phpunit.cache

For Python projects:

cloc . --exclude-dir=.venv,__pycache__,.pytest_cache,dist,build

For JVM languages (Java, Kotlin), Go, or Rust:

cloc . --exclude-dir=target,build,bin,dist,vendor

The output breaks down line counts by language:

Language          files   blank  comment    code
------------------------------------------------
Python               42     620      310    4200
JavaScript           18     190       85    1800
------------------------------------------------
SUM:                 60     810      395    6000

Use the code column as the LOC figure. Export results to JSON or CSV for reporting:

cloc . --exclude-dir=... --json > loc-report.json
cloc . --csv --out=loc-report.csv