Files
ironclaw/CLAUDE.md
Benjamin Kurrek 8b32989d0a Guidance unification: one canonical home per fact, a measured loader story, and a gate that keeps it true (#7306)
* ci(guidance): add check-guidance.py — guidance must reference the tree that exists

Four mechanical drift classes become build failures: every repo path named
by agent guidance (root AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md, crates/** AGENTS/CLAUDE/
CONTRACT/README, .claude/rules/*.md, .claude/skills/*/SKILL.md) must
resolve in the tracked tree; every rules/skills frontmatter paths: glob
must match at least one tracked file (the dead-trigger class that let
skills.md never fire); every crate directory appears in its family's
AGENTS.md crate table (the guidance half of check-target-tree.py); and
every crate has a README.md (measured 62/62, so it gates).

Extraction is designed against false positives: fenced blocks, placeholder
tokens, MCP method names, dated-correction (✎) lines, and
'check-guidance: path-ok' lines are not claims; resolution honors the
citation forms measured on the live tree (root-relative, doc-relative,
name-prefix, crate-qualified-by-context, module-relative within the citing
crate). KNOWN_MISSING is a shrink-only suppression table — a row whose
reference stops dangling fails the gate until deleted, and surviving rows
print as warnings every run.

Fails closed on unreadable files, unparseable frontmatter, broken crate
discovery, and near-empty scans (floor constants). Self-test in
test-check-guidance.py (23 cases, refusals first, real repository last),
wired beside check-target-tree.py in code_style.yml; the test planner
classifies all three paths as static-control (verified exit 0).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs(guidance): consolidate crate-tier CLAUDE.md files; rename module specs to CONTRACT.md

Steps 2+3 of the guidance unification (docs/reborn/guidance-conventions.md):

- Rename the four Module Specs table specs CLAUDE.md -> CONTRACT.md (llm,
  filesystem, webui, composition), matching the identity/trust precedent.
  Charter gates repointed (llm module_charter, webui handlers_module_charter)
  and every live reference updated; pointer stubs left behind so tooling that
  loads CLAUDE.md still lands on the spec.
- Fold the nine substantive out-of-table CLAUDE.md files: wasm, mcp, sandbox,
  auth, assistant, trace_commons, extension_manager become AGENTS.md-canonical
  (gates repointed with pinned phrases kept verbatim: the wasm_sandbox_core
  arch pin, mcp module_charter, auth module_charter, assistant
  reborn_services_module_charter); network and secrets fold into their README
  Invariants sections and drop the crate guidance pair entirely.
- Mark with the convention's absence-claim annotation the five crate-tier
  lines grandfathered by check-guidance KNOWN_MISSING (llm CONTRACT.md x3,
  composition CONTRACT.md, hooks AGENTS.md) and mark trace_commons'
  prescribed tests/queue.rs mirror as prescriptive-future.
- tests/CLAUDE.md: replace the retired root Current-Limitations citation with
  the measured ironclaw_observability description.

End state: zero prose CLAUDE.md outside the Module Specs table at the crate
tier (the four ironclaw_agent_loop src/tests directory guides stay, same
footing as the tests-tree harness guides).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs(guidance): unify the root pair — AGENTS.md canonical, CLAUDE.md adapter

Step 1: root AGENTS.md (198 lines) and root CLAUDE.md (286 lines) shared zero
identical lines — the forked-pair drift the guidance convention forbids at
crate level, live at the root. Root AGENTS.md is now the canonical
tool-neutral contract (build/run/debug commands, hard invariants including
the unified extension model and the credential_name/extension_name identity
rules, the Module Specs table — now uniformly CONTRACT.md and gaining the
existing ironclaw_trust/CONTRACT.md row — testing discipline, tree map,
discovery, change discipline; 152 lines). Root CLAUDE.md is an @AGENTS.md
adapter plus the genuinely Claude-specific tail: skills/rules index,
codebase-graph MCP recipes, and the REPL info!/warn! logging rule (51 lines).

Cut while merging, each measured against the tree: the v1 Job State Machine
(no such state machine exists under crates/), Current Limitations (stale —
the observability claim no longer matches the crate), the Skills System
section (.claude/rules/skills.md and the domain crate own it), Extracted
Crates, the re-derivable key-traits list, and the long channel-onboarding
narrative (now three lines pointing at crates/extensions/AGENTS.md and the
worked slack example).

Every live citation of the root pair's moved sections is repointed (crates/
routing map + README, the deslop-reborn command, types/type-placement rules,
skills/common/config crate docs, a loop_host doc comment). The git-ignored
.codebase-memory/artifact.json mention carries the absence-claim annotation
for the check-guidance KNOWN_MISSING handoff.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs(guidance): make CLAUDE.md a symlink to AGENTS.md at every tier

The loader question is now measured, not assumed. Headless canary experiment
with a discriminating control: a symlinked nested CLAUDE.md's target content IS
injected when a file in that directory is read, an @AGENTS.md import inside a
nested CLAUDE.md also expands, and a nested AGENTS.md alone is NOT read. So one
uniform rule holds everywhere: wherever an AGENTS.md exists, CLAUDE.md sits
beside it as a symlink — same bytes, zero maintenance, no second document to
drift.

64 pointer stubs become symlinks. The four spec crates keep CONTRACT.md as
canonical; their AGENTS.md routes there, so the spec stays one hop away while
the working rules now auto-inject instead of costing a voluntary read.

Also reconciled check-guidance.py's shrink-only KNOWN_MISSING table: all 8 rows
deleted because the content pass fixed the underlying lines, and the three
absence-claims the gate then surfaced carry markers. The table is empty.

Caveat recorded for the convention: nested injection fires only below cwd, and
appears not to fire in subagent sessions — family docs must stand alone when
read deliberately.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs(guidance): amend the convention with measured loader mechanics and budgets

The first version made crate AGENTS.md canonical and CLAUDE.md a pointer, which
moved working rules out of Claude Code's auto-inject path. Records what was
measured instead: subtree CLAUDE.md injects lazily, symlinks and @imports both
carry content, nested AGENTS.md is not read natively, and injection does not
fire in subagent sessions — so every doc must stand alone when read deliberately.

Adds size budgets per tier, extends scope to .claude/rules and .claude/skills
(where the worst drift was), names check-guidance.py as the enforcement with its
suppression markers, warns that some guidance is test-parsed (including the
heading-shadowing trap), and adds the remove/rename checklist that mirrors add.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(guidance): composition keeps a real CLAUDE.md, not a symlink

The blanket symlink pass broke composition_root_embeds_no_prompt_content, and
the gate is right to refuse: its ownership walks do not follow symlinks, so
stepping over one would let it report clean on a subtree it never read. This
crate keeps a regular pointer file, with the reason written in the file so the
next person does not 'fix' the inconsistency back into a break.

The uniform alias rule now has two stated exceptions: the root (real file, it
carries a Claude-only tail) and composition (real file, this gate).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* ci(guidance): enforce the CLAUDE.md alias rule; scope path-ok to the marked reference

The branch's central invariant — a `CLAUDE.md -> AGENTS.md` symlink beside
every AGENTS.md at the root and under crates/ — was unguarded: the audit
proved a committed symlink deletion left the gate green (a working-tree
deletion only tripped the accidental "cannot read guidance file" refusal).
Check 5 now judges the git index (`git ls-files -s` + `cat-file`): the
alias must be tracked, mode 120000, targeting exactly `AGENTS.md`. The two
real-file exceptions are named rows with reasons (the root adapter's
Claude-only tail; composition's symlink-refusing ownership walks), and a
row that stops matching the tree fails the gate rather than lingering.
Sabotage-verified on the real tree: `git rm --cached` on an alias went red
naming the pair; converting one to a tracked regular file went red;
restore went green (65 aliases verified).

Also from the audit:

- A `path-ok` marker now vouches for the one reference immediately
  preceding it instead of exempting its whole line — the audit slipped a
  fresh dangling path onto a marked line and passed. The `✎` glyph stays
  line-scoped by documented design. Both in-tree marker usages already
  sit marker-after-reference and keep working.
- Document the structural blind spot: a dead reference whose first
  segment died with its whole tree (the v1 `src/…` monolith) reads as
  historical narration and cannot be flagged; only review catches it.
- Re-measure the fail-closed floor comment — the shipped one claimed
  174 guidance files / ~800 references / 30 globs against a tree that
  measures 237 / ~2070 / 38 — and add a floor for alias-site discovery.

Self-test grows six cases: index-deleted alias, regular-file alias,
wrong-target alias, the load-bearing root exception row, exception rows
matching reality, and the marker-narrowing exploit. The `--tracked-files`
override marks symlinks as `<path> -> <target>`.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs(guidance): repoint dead skill refs, record alias carve-outs, honest size budgets

Content half of the guidance-unification audit fixes:

- architecture-video SKILL.md told readers to read `src/tools/README.md`
  and `src/workspace/README.md` — the v1 monolith is gone
  (`git ls-files | grep -c '^src/'` is 0) and the gate structurally
  cannot flag first-segment-dead paths. Repointed at the Reborn
  successors: `crates/extensions/AGENTS.md` and
  `crates/domains/ironclaw_memory/README.md`.
- guidance-conventions.md now records what only commit messages knew:
  the composition real-file exception beside the root one; the four
  sanctioned ironclaw_agent_loop sub-module CLAUDE.md guides; and the
  alias rule's actual scope (root + crates/**), naming the two
  out-of-scope AGENTS.md (docs/reborn/contracts, ironclaw_silk_decoder)
  instead of a "wherever" wording the tree contradicted.
- Size budgets re-derived from measurement (family <=220, crate <=160)
  with the four crate-tier exceptions named and reasoned. The shipped
  <=150/<=80 numbers were exceeded by 3 family and 24 of 54 crate docs
  on day one, which made the budget unreadable as a signal. No document
  was padded or truncated to fit.
- Root CLAUDE.md used the dated-correction glyph on the deliberately
  untracked `.codebase-memory/artifact.json` reference — suppression
  duty outside the glyph's documented historical-prose meaning. Swapped
  for `<!-- check-guidance: path-ok -->` beside the reference.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* review(7306): CodeRabbit triage — guidance gate runs for the files it governs, brace globs, honest floors, identity-column family tables, doc-truth fixes

Trigger (Major, the inert-guard finding): fast-checks was gated on has_code,
whose regex covers none of .claude/, the root AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md pair, or
docs/ — so a PR editing only a rule's paths: trigger skipped the gate built
for exactly that change. New has_guidance output OR-s those surfaces into
fast-checks only (clippy/JS lanes stay code-scoped); has_code keeps its
pinned meaning. Pinned by a ws12_workflow_contracts.py row and verified by
replaying representative change lists through the workflow's own extracted
EREs.

check-guidance.py: glob_to_regex now translates {a,b} brace alternation
(nested; unmatched braces stay literal) so a legitimate crates/**/*.{rs,toml}
trigger counts as live instead of being reported dead; MIN_RULE_GLOBS 1->20
and MIN_ALIAS_PAIRS 10->40 (~half of measured 38/65, so a degraded parser
refuses instead of passing); family-table coverage now requires the crate in
a row's identity (first) column — an incidental mention in another row's
prose no longer counts (measured 0 regressions on the live tree). Self-tests:
+3 (brace trigger end-to-end, duplicate KNOWN_MISSING rows, identity-column
regression) and the real-repository case documents its deliberate git
coupling. Floors sabotage-verified.

Doc truth, measured against code: composition CONTRACT — WS stream shares
SseCapacity (stream_events_ws try_acquire, pinned test) replacing 'No WS
surface to bound', webui_v2_app returns Result<Router, WebuiServeError>;
llm CONTRACT — the circuit breaker wraps failover (apply_decorator_chain
order), not the reverse; filesystem CONTRACT — dependency rule now names the
real manifest set (+libsql_runtime, +observability); extension_manager
AGENTS — the loops layer flip landed (layer = "loops"); four stale 'has no
CLAUDE.md' claims updated for the new symlink aliases (config, common,
event_store x2); root AGENTS — clippy line gains -- -D warnings (CI denies
warnings; unflagged clippy exits 0 with them) and the error bullet routes to
.claude/rules/error-handling.md; assistant/webui validation sections document
the real lane structure (self-dev-dep unifies test-support on, so the missing
shape is the no-dev-deps production lane, the #7119 class).

Stale pre-family paths in .rs prose: 594 crates/ironclaw_* citations
measured; 130 sit in comments, of which 106 repointed to their family homes
(every rewritten path verified to resolve), 10 of those needed deeper
repoints (files that moved crates: capability_host.rs, channel_pairing.rs,
approval_store_contract.rs, secret_store.rs, loop_contracts
instruction_bundle.rs, assistant communication_context.rs, loop_host
surface_disclosure.rs, resolver_tests.rs), 24 left deliberately (flat-
spelling narration about the family move itself, deleted-crate history,
synthetic fixture names, and two #6945-class pointers whose target is gone
at every spelling). 464 string-literal citations left: the specificity
test resolves legacy spellings through the crate inventory by design.

Triage of PR #7306 review comments; no gate weakened, both alias
exceptions preserved.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* review(7306): drop the one comment repoint in tests/e2e_trace_runtime_policy_org_ceiling_yolo.rs

reborn_pr_test_plan.py has no mapping for this root test (it matches
neither the tests/reborn_* partition inventory nor any other arm), so ANY
PR touching it fails 'Detect Reborn test scope' — a pre-existing planner
gap, confirmed against origin/main with a one-file changed list. The stale
crates/ironclaw_runtime_policy comment path inside it stays until the
planner learns the file; noted for follow-up rather than smuggling planner
surgery into a review-triage branch.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs(contributing): stop annotating the loose iteration clippy line as 'zero warnings'

Same class as the root AGENTS.md fix: unflagged clippy exits 0 with
warnings, so the annotation overclaimed. CONTRIBUTING's two-tier design
(loose iteration block, then a stricter pre-PR block that already carries
-- -D warnings) is deliberate and stays; only the claim is aligned.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* docs: recount the frozen WebUI route table after the #7306 merge — 93 -> 97

#7236 (main) added the four operator inspector routes without bumping the
stated counts; re-derived on the merged tree:
rg -c 'pub const WEBUI_V2_ROUTE_' crates/product/ironclaw_webui/src/webui_v2/descriptors.rs -> 97.
Updates the two live claims (webui README, PROPOSAL SS6.9.4 with its
strike-through recount convention); historical/superseded 92-row mentions
stay as written.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix(ci): the code-style roll-up must judge fast-checks for guidance-only PRs

The has_guidance trigger made fast-checks RUN for .claude/ and root-pair
changes, but the roll-up's has_code==false branch exits 0 before it ever reads
fast-checks' result — so check-guidance.py could fail and Code Style would
still report success. The gate ran and could never block: exactly the
inert-guard shape this change exists to remove, reintroduced one layer up.

Fixed the way main's docs-publication gate already does it — judged before the
early exit, with the reason in a comment. Sabotage-verified: has_guidance=true
plus fast-checks=failure now exits 1.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-08-07 12:18:15 +00:00

2.4 KiB

IronClaw — Claude Code adapter

@AGENTS.md

Everything above (from AGENTS.md) is the canonical, tool-neutral contract. The rest of this file is Claude-specific.

Skills and rules

  • Project skills live in .claude/skills/ — start from ironclaw-reborn-orientation; use reborn-feature for cross-layer product work, reborn-extension-surfaces for integrations, ironclaw-reborn-testing for test tiers, ironclaw-reborn-architecture-review for boundary changes, and ironclaw-reborn-skill-maintainer before editing any guidance file.
  • Path-scoped rules in .claude/rules/*.md load automatically when you read matching files — they are canonical for their topics (testing, database, types, cargo-features, review discipline, …); do not restate them here.

Codebase knowledge graph (MCP)

The codebase-memory MCP server indexes crates/ into a knowledge graph; prefer it over Grep for code structure (cross-crate call chains are invisible to text search). .codebase-memory/graph.db.zst is the committed bootstrap snapshot; local databases and .codebase-memory/artifact.json stay git-ignored (per-environment state, deliberately untracked). Check freshness first: bash scripts/codebase-graph.sh status.

  • Missing → index_repository(repo_path=".", persistence=true) once.
  • Stale → detect_changes(since="<indexed-commit>"), or re-run index_repository to refresh the shared snapshot.
  • Where is a symbol → search_graph(name_pattern=…), then get_code_snippet(qualified_name=…).
  • Who calls X / what X calls → trace_path(function_name=…, mode="calls"); value flow → mode="data_flow"; cross-crate feature path → mode="cross_service".
  • Structure of an area → get_architecture(…); graph-augmented text search → search_code(pattern=…); arbitrary queries → query_graph(<Cypher>).

The graph is a point-in-time index — verify anything it asserts against live code before acting. Grep/Glob/Read remain correct for text, config, and non-code files. For narrative what/why orientation, read the relevant openwiki/ page (generated — never hand-edit).

REPL/TUI logging rule

info! and warn! output appears in the REPL and corrupts the terminal UI. Use debug! for internal diagnostics (trace analysis, reflection results, engine internals); reserve info! for user-facing status the REPL intentionally renders. Background tasks must NEVER use info!.