fix(kyberforge): reconcile the authoring rules the ADR-0020 trim left disagreeing

Six defects, each one a place where two files that an author reads in the same
sitting told them different things — or where the trim dropped a rule and nothing
noticed because no gate covers prose.

**"Use proactively" contradicted itself across the pair.** All three agent
templates said to add it where the runtime should delegate unprompted, while
`agent-audit`'s `KyberforgeCopilot.ProactivePhrase` rule grades it a hard FAIL in
any `*.agent.md` — which is the Copilot half of every project/user pair *and* the
vendor-neutral plugin-scope file, since that compiles to a real Copilot agent
downstream. Following the template produced a file the repo's own gate rejects.
The phrase is now permitted in exactly one place, the Claude Code `.md`, and
`references/contract.md` carries the per-file table plus the consequence authors
ask about next: a pair whose CC half has it and whose Copilot half does not is
correct, because `agent-audit` checks that both halves describe the same job, not
that they match word for word.

**The output-schema rule contradicted itself inside one file.** `contract.md`
said any content only one branch reaches moves to `references/`, and then offered
an "Output format template" body pattern with no qualification. Stated once now,
so it is not re-litigated: an output schema stays in the body only when every flow
produces it and it is roughly 50 words or less. No third option.

**Gotchas tiers disagreed with the script.** `validate.sh` emits the entry count
through `suggest()` and exits 0, while `skill-author` and `skill-audit` both
called more than five entries a FAIL. Whether a given gotcha earns its place is
judgment, so the prose moves to the script's tier rather than the reverse. The
paraphrase rule stays a FAIL and is explicitly marked as the auditor's call — no
script detects it.

**The dispatch exemplar was cited at the wrong number.** `apm-workflow`'s body is
421 words; 554 is its whole-file count. Both `contract.md` and `body-discipline.md`
cited 554 while describing a body budget, so an author calibrating against the
exemplar overshot by ~30% — the exact whole-file/body-only conflation those two
sections exist to warn against, reproduced inside the warning.

**"Error handling" came back as a required body element.** It was one of four and
is the one that gets dropped, and dropping it is not neutral: an agent handed
malformed input with no instruction invents a recovery, and a subagent's invented
recovery is invisible to its caller until the output is wrong. Restored in
`agent-audit`'s rubric as a SUGGESTION, in `agent-author`'s contract and both
scope checklists as a required element, and as an `## Errors` section in all three
templates.

**`skill-author` Step 4 gains the one check the audit misses.** An empty body
reports `PASS SKILL.md body word count 0` — a word gate cannot tell "concise"
from "absent". Step 4 now hand-checks for a non-empty section, and its commit
verification is conditioned on actually being inside a git worktree, which a skill
under `~/.claude/skills/` is not.

Also here: absolute repo paths removed from `skill-author`'s SKILL.md and
contract.md in favour of naming the skill (`zoom-out`'s description is quoted
inline instead of pointed at), the boundary-target universe documented to match
the resolver, a two-hops-from-SKILL.md limit on reference chains, and
`new-agent.sh`'s next-steps output naming the description budget and the
deliberate absence of an agent body gate.

Refs: ADR-0020
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-16 16:40:51 +00:00
parent 2540e50fcc
commit 311e7cd22c
26 changed files with 332 additions and 108 deletions

View File

@@ -47,11 +47,15 @@ explicitly" only where the user's natural phrasing genuinely omits the domain wo
for `git-commits`, where the user says "commit". Adding one everywhere is what inflated this
corpus, and it was deleted as a blanket rule.
**Boundary targets must resolve.** The name after the arrow is checked against real skill
directories under `plugins/*/.apm/skills/<name>/` and real agents under
`plugins/*/.apm/agents/<name>.agent.md`. A boundary clause naming a target that does not exist
sends the router nowhere and fails the audit. Check the target exists before writing it — do not
invent a plausible sibling name.
**Boundary targets must resolve.** Both forms are checked — the arrow and the prose form ("do not
use for X, use `y` instead") — so a typo dangles either way. Targets resolve against a universe
built by walking up **from the SKILL.md itself**: the nearest ancestor holding
`plugins/*/.apm/{skills,agents}` (or, failing that, the nearest ancestor holding `.git`) contributes
every skill and agent under `<root>/plugins/*/`, plus the skill's own apm package and the packages
that package declares in `apm.yml` under `dependencies.apm`. A sibling plugin in the same monorepo
therefore resolves; a skill in an unrelated repo does not. A boundary clause naming a target
outside that universe sends the router nowhere and fails the audit. Check the target exists before
writing it — do not invent a plausible sibling name.
**Length.** 250 characters SUGGESTION, 400 characters FAIL, counting the frontmatter value only
with YAML folding resolved. The agentskills.io 1,024-character spec limit is unchanged and sits
@@ -61,7 +65,13 @@ as the outlier stop.
**Hand-invoked skills are exempt.** A skill carrying `disable-model-invocation: true` is absent
from the model-visible listing and is reached only by the user typing `/name`. It takes one plain
human-facing sentence — no trigger clause, no boundary clause, no indirect triggers. Worked
example: `plugins/bin/.apm/skills/zoom-out/SKILL.md`.
example — the whole description of the `zoom-out` skill, which carries `disable-model-invocation`:
````markdown
Tell the agent to zoom out and give broader context or a higher-level perspective. Use when
you're unfamiliar with a section of code or need to understand how it fits into the bigger
picture.
````
## Body
@@ -90,6 +100,12 @@ blocks, rationale prose, and any content only one branch reaches. Each reference
self-contained for its concern, and every one is wired from the body with the literal conditional
form:
**The one exception, stated once so it is not re-litigated:** an output schema stays in the body
only when it applies to *every* flow and is short — roughly 50 words or less, which is the "Output
format template" pattern below. An output schema that is longer than that, or that only one flow
produces, moves to `references/` like any other schema. No third option exists, and the two rules
do not disagree.
````markdown
If <condition>, read `references/<file>.md`.
````
@@ -98,8 +114,9 @@ A generic pointer ("see references/ for details") is a Vale error — the agent
**Dispatch is mandatory at two or more mutually exclusive flows.** The body carries the dispatch
table and the gates common to every branch; each flow gets its own self-contained `references/`
file. Exemplar: `plugins/kyberforge/.apm/skills/apm-workflow/SKILL.md` — a 554-word body
dispatching to 3,006 words of references.
file. Exemplar: the `apm-workflow` skill — a **421-word body** dispatching to 3,006 words of
references. Calibrate against 421: that file's whole-file count is 554 words, and aiming at that
number instead overshoots the body budget by ~30%.
**Length.** 600 words SUGGESTION, 900 words FAIL, counting the **body only** — everything after
the frontmatter's closing `---`.
@@ -108,7 +125,7 @@ the frontmatter's closing `---`.
- Each entry must state a fact that **contradicts a reasonable default** — something the agent
gets wrong by acting sensibly. "Never commit secrets" is not one; the agent already knows.
- Maximum five entries.
- More than five entries is a SUGGESTION — five is the guideline, not a ceiling.
- A Gotcha that paraphrases a step in the body below it is a **FAIL**. If the rule is already a
step, it is not a gotcha.
- A Gotchas section exceeding 25% of the body is a SUGGESTION.
@@ -164,7 +181,9 @@ Do not modify flags.
| <condition> | <flow> | `references/<file>.md` |
````
**Output format template** (when the skill produces structured output):
**Output format template** (when the skill produces structured output on *every* flow, and the
schema is roughly 50 words or less — see the exception under Body above; anything longer or
flow-specific belongs in `references/`):
````markdown
Output format:
@@ -173,7 +192,8 @@ Output format:
```
````
For longer templates, place them in `assets/<name>.md` and reference conditionally.
For longer templates, place them in `references/<topic>.md` or `assets/<name>.md` and reference
conditionally.
## Embedding org-specific policy