The clean provenance bill was an artifact. Checks 7 and 8 assume `Research doc:` names a source index whose H2s are slugs, but 30 of 121 corpus entries point at topic content documents whose H2s are topics. Those 30 produced every new check-7 INFO — all false positives. Check 8 aimed at the same documents, which carry no `Status:` line at all, would have emitted a large false-FAIL flood; the only thing preventing it was an unannounced `rd_status != extracted` skip. So "0 new FAILs" rested on exactly the fail-open class this branch exists to remove, and naively fixing the skip would have turned the branch red. Checks 7/8 now run only when the research doc's basename is `sources.md`, and every other case emits a visible INFO naming the slug. The dangling-path INFO stays ahead of the basename gate, because a path that does not resolve is rot whatever it is named. `parse_status` accepts the bullet form and a trailing note after the backticked value, so a status it cannot read no longer reads as "nothing to check". Corpus: 36 INFOs of which 30 were false, to 56 of which none are. FAIL stays 0, and no Status line flipped to `extracted` under the new parser, so no FAIL was suppressed by luck. Also closed, each a silent pass: a nonexistent directory, a directory with no SKILL.md, and extra arguments now exit 2; a UTF-8 BOM no longer defeats frontmatter parsing; the bare `except Exception: return False` that turned an unreadable file into a clean pass is gone, with all reads pinned to UTF-8; check 3 walks nested `references/` subdirectories; `FILL IN:` at end of line no longer escapes checks 1 and 6; duplicate `## slug` blocks and repeated `Research doc:` lines are announced rather than half-read. The agent-audit copy carried all of the above unfixed and is now ported, minus the four fixes that are genuinely N/A at agent scope — it reads a plugin-root `sources.md` and has no checks 7/8 and no `references/` tree. Its silent exit 0 for a file outside plugin scope is preserved deliberately: that is a verdict about a valid file, not a skip, and `check-scope-walkup-sync.sh` pins it. Every exit-2 gate therefore decides from the argument alone, before the walk-up runs. `validation-scripts.md` said flatly that silence from the validator is a pass, not a skip. That sentence is what made a typo'd path dangerous, and both copies are corrected here. The matching SKILL.md exit-code guidance lands with the audit rubric change, which touches the same files. Tests: skill-audit 45 to 65, agent-audit 24 to 43, every new case proven by mutation. Refs: #111, #118, #121
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---
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source_keys:
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- agentskills-spec
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- agentskills-using-scripts
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---
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# Validation Scripts Reference
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Read this when a Step 1 script fails, cannot run, or reports something that needs interpreting.
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Nothing here is needed on a clean run.
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## Report the gap, do not guess
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If a script cannot run at all — Bash denied, `python3` unavailable, PyYAML not importable, `vale`
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not installed — say so as an **INFO** finding naming the script and the missing dependency, then
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fall back to the manual checks below. An INFO never changes PASS/FAIL. Silently omitting the
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dimension a script would have covered reports a clean audit that checked less than it claims to
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have checked, and the Step 4 coverage line then names a dimension nothing actually examined.
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## Manual structural fallback
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`validate.sh` needs `python3` **and** PyYAML, and refuses to start without either — the description
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value has to be measured after YAML folding is resolved, so skipping the ADR-0020 gates would be a
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vacuous pass rather than a partial one. The two are checked separately, so the message already names
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the right one — report it verbatim rather than diagnosing further:
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```text
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Error: python3 is required but was not found on PATH.
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Error: PyYAML is required but is not importable by python3.
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```
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Without them — or with Bash denied, or on a permission error — work this list
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by hand and file the results under `### Structure` exactly as the script's output would have been:
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- **`name`** present, 1–64 characters, kebab-case (lowercase letters, digits and hyphens; no
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leading, trailing or doubled hyphen), and **matching the skill's directory name** exactly.
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- **`description`** present and non-empty; no unfilled `FILL IN:` placeholder in it. An absent or
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empty description is a **FAIL**, never a silent skip — it is the one field preloaded into every
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session, so a skill without one can never be routed to.
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- **Description length**, measured on the folded YAML value with newlines collapsed to single
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spaces — not on the raw block scalar, which counts indentation. 250 characters SUGGESTION, 400
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FAIL (ADR-0020), 1,024 FAIL (agentskills.io spec).
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- **Body length**, counting everything after the frontmatter's closing `---`. 600 words
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SUGGESTION, 900 FAIL (ADR-0020).
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- **Whole-file ceilings**, counting the file including frontmatter: 500 lines FAIL, 2,770 words
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FAIL (agentskills.io spec). These are a different measurement from the two above — report them
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as separate findings, never merged.
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- **A boundary clause is present** — either the prose form (`do not` / `instead` / `rather than` /
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`not for`) or ADR-0020's compressed `Not <thing> -> <name>` arrow. **SUGGESTION**, not FAIL:
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the absence is deterministic, but whether this skill warrants one is the auditor's call.
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- **Boundary targets resolve** — **FAIL** on a name that resolves to nothing. See the section
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below; resolving these by hand is the one item on this list with a procedure of its own.
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- **Every `references/<file>.md` named in the body exists on disk** — **FAIL**, not a suggestion.
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A dispatch table or "read X" trigger naming a missing file sends the agent nowhere. Ignore
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mentions inside fenced code blocks, and ignore a mention whose own line says the file is gone
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(`removed`, `deleted`, `renamed`, `superseded`, `replaced`, `obsolete`, `deprecated`, `former`,
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`gone`, `no longer`, `used to`) — that is a historical note, not a dispatch entry.
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- **Gotchas discipline**, both **SUGGESTION**. Locate the section by a heading that *is* Gotchas
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(`## Common Gotchas` counts; `## Gotcha handling` and `## Why gotchas matter` do not), running to
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the next heading at the same level or shallower. More than five top-level entries is one
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suggestion; a section over 25% of the body word count is a second, independent one. Count
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entries at column 0 only — an indented child bullet is not an entry — and ignore fenced code
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blocks for both.
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- **No unfilled `FILL IN:` placeholder** anywhere in the body.
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- **Every file in `scripts/`** carries the executable bit and contains no interactive prompt —
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no bare `read`, no `select`, nothing that blocks on a TTY.
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## Resolving boundary targets by hand
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Targets are read from **both** boundary forms. The compressed `Not <thing> -> <name>` arrow and the
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prose form are each parsed *and* target-checked, so a typo in prose phrasing fails exactly as an
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arrow typo does — do not check only the names after an arrow.
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Build the universe by walking up **from the `SKILL.md` under audit**, never from the validator's own
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location. The nearest ancestor holding `plugins/*/.apm/skills/` or `plugins/*/.apm/agents/` is the
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authoring root, falling back to the nearest ancestor holding `.git`. When one is found the universe
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is every skill and agent under `<root>/plugins/*/`, plus the skill's own apm package, plus the
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packages that package declares in its `apm.yml` under `dependencies.apm`. Deployed `.claude/` and
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`.agents/` trees are consulted **only** when no authoring root exists — they are gitignored
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`apm install` output, and reading them would make a fresh clone and a developer machine disagree.
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Three ways to read the result wrong:
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- **A hyphenated name used attributively is not a dangling target.** "Use pre-commit hooks instead
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of ad-hoc scripts" reads as a route to `pre-commit` on wording alone. What separates a route from
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prose is grammar: a route target is terminal — followed by punctuation, a conjunction, or a
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boundary word — whereas a compound modifier is followed by the noun it modifies. A name followed
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by an ordinary noun still *confirms* a route when it exists, but never raises a FAIL on its own.
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- **A SUGGESTION-tier unresolved target is not a FAIL you may promote.** Terminal position alone is
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not evidence of a route: "run `pre-commit` instead", "see `commit-msg`" and "use the clean-up
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instead" are all terminal and all prose. A prose-form target earns a FAIL only when its own
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sentence names another target that *does* resolve; otherwise the script reports it and moves on,
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and so should you. Route notation — `/name` and `-> name` — is exempt and always FAILs, and it is
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the fix to recommend when the author did mean a route.
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- **`INFO boundary-target resolution DID NOT RUN` is not a pass.** The script prints it, and exits
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0, when no universe could be determined for that path — the usual cause being a skill copy
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audited outside its package. Report it as an INFO naming the unchecked targets and re-run against
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the real directory; filing it as clean signs off targets nothing verified.
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## Script-specific failures
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- **`validate-provenance.sh` printed nothing *and exited 0*.** That is a pass, not a skip — it
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exits 0 silently when the skill has no `source_keys` and no `references/sources.md`, and nothing
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to validate is not a finding. Check the exit code before you believe the silence: a target that
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is not a directory, a directory holding no `SKILL.md`, a missing or extra argument, and an absent
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`python3` all exit **2** with a message on stderr. Exit 2 means the script never ran — report it
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as an unaudited dimension, never as a pass and never as a finding. Exit 1 is findings.
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- **`vale` reports `0 files`.** Treat the pass as NOT RUN, not as clean, and fall back to full
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Step 3 judgment for the dimensions it would have covered. The bundled `Kyberforge` style is
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scoped by glob in `assets/vale/.vale.ini`; a file outside those globs is silently not linted.
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- **`E100 Runtime error ... does not exist` (exit 2) from `vale-wrap.sh`.** An explicit relative
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`--config` was passed. Pass none: the wrapper locates its own `assets/vale/.vale.ini` from its
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own path, so a resolved script path plus an unresolved config path produces exactly this. Do not
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read this exit code as vale being unavailable — that misreading sends the audit down the
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fallback path while vale was installed and working the whole time.
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- **The `vale` binary is genuinely absent** (`command not found`). Report one INFO naming it, then
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fall back to full Step 3 judgment for the description, body-discipline and patterns dimensions —
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the prefilter's whole coverage. Judge those by rubric rather than dropping them.
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- **A path argument that does not exist is a hard error** in `vale-wrap.sh`, deliberately: bare
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`vale` would fall back to reading stdin and print a clean-looking `0 errors ... in stdin`, which
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the `0 files` guard above does not catch.
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