Files
holocron/docs/adr/0015-apm-replaces-plugin-marketplace-authoring.md
Defame1297 620f20b0fd refactor(kyberforge)!: merge skill-audit and agent-audit into factory-audit
Why

The two audit skills carried 1,724 lines of byte-identical duplication: the ADR-0020 boundary
resolver (1,061), vale-wrap.sh (526), the Vale style rules (44) and the Contributing-files parser
(93). Nothing shared them — they were held in sync by a 413-line pre-push gate and its 797-line
test suite. Sync-by-gate had already failed once: at 484357a the two parser copies drifted into
different spellings of the bullet loop while a docstring asserted they were identical. That drift
was behaviour-neutral and was re-unified by hand at 598a7c3, so the copies were identical at merge
time — but nothing had caught it, and the next drift need not be neutral.

Implementation Notes

Self-containment binds BETWEEN skills, not within one. The agentskills.io spec forbids reaching
across skill directories, which is why two separate skills needed embedded copies; two files inside
ONE skill may source a third. That is the whole reason the merge removes duplication rather than
relocating it.

The union of both bodies measured 1,532 words against BODY_MAX_WORDS=900, and only 211 of those
words were shared, so SKILL.md is a dispatch body. Step 0 resolves the flow from the target path
before any validation, and its table mirrors validate.sh's detection exactly: a directory holding
SKILL.md or a SKILL.md file (skill); a *.agent.md, or a .md directly under an agents/ directory
(agent); anything else stops without running a validator. Steps 1-3 live in
references/skill-flow.md and references/agent-flow.md, and gotchas that apply to one flow live in
that flow's file, since it is loaded on every invocation anyway. If validate.sh reports on the
other artifact type, the body restarts at Step 0.

Named factory-audit rather than forge-audit because forge is a live skill, and a family prefix that
matches a live sibling reads as ownership rather than membership.

The description carries one arrow per boundary target, because ADR-0020 resolves only the first
target after an arrow. It drops the quoted "audit this skill"-style phrases, which restated
"audited" in a second register (ADR-0020's duplicate-register rule). 241 characters, Gotchas 16%
of the body: no size SUGGESTIONs.

The boundary resolver stays embedded in two files rather than imported: a cache-installed plugin
cannot read outside its own directory, and the repo-root hook resolves via .pre-commit-hooks.yaml
where entry[0] is the only token pre-commit rewrites, so no single file is reachable by both.
tests/test-adr0020-contract.sh hashes both copies for byte-identity, and asserts validate.sh sources
the resolver and that no third copy exists.

The entry scripts classify the target from its resolved parent directory, so a bare agent filename
typed inside agents/ works; resolve SCRIPT_DIR CDPATH-safely; and exit 2 when a lib-*.sh is
missing, rather than dying with exit 1, the tier the flows relay as real findings.

The provenance run functions stash their findings code in KYBERFORGE_PROV_RC and
return 0, so validate-provenance.sh calls them UNTESTED. Testing a function's
status (`f || RC=$?`) disables errexit for its entire body, and no subshell or
`set -e` inside can re-arm it once the call sits in a condition context
(measured, both spellings). Their error paths use `exit`, which is unaffected
either way; this keeps errexit armed for anything added later.

Case 0's readability guard reads the file instead of asking `[[ -r ]]`. `-r` is
access(2), which answers yes for uid 0 even on a mode-000 file, and this repo's
dev environment is root -- so the guard could never fire where it exists to fire.
A read attempt is also the stricter question, catching EIO. This is the reasoning
scripts/check-vale-style-sync.sh carried before this commit deleted it; the
hazard did not go with it.

All three entry scripts are CDPATH-safe, vale-wrap.sh included: both of its cd sites are cleared,
the --config resolution and the directory-mirror walk, where an exported CDPATH would otherwise
print a decoy path into the -print0 stream and build the mirror from the decoy's files. The two
remaining bare cd calls take absolute paths, which CDPATH is never consulted for.

Impact

BREAKING: skill-audit and agent-audit no longer exist as invocable skills. kyberforge goes to
2.0.0 (catalog 0.4.7).

Check logic is unchanged: differential runs of the old and new validators across every skill and
agent produced byte-identical stdout, stderr and exit codes, and the reconstructed Python payloads
differ only in comments and the references/field-inventory.md -> agent-field-inventory.md rename.
One doctrine governs the tiers: exit 0 is audited and clean, exit 1 is audited with findings OR a
target present but unreadable, exit 2 is that nothing was audited at all. Edge paths DID change,
deliberately (full table in ADR-0025):
- a missing target exits 2 (never ran), not 1, under its own "does not exist" message; detection is
  by path shape, so a shape-matching path that is simply absent used to reach the validator and come
  back as a FAIL against a file that never existed;
- an unshaped target exits 2 under the generic "matches neither" message, and a directory with no
  SKILL.md under a third, distinct one -- three exit-2 messages, not one;
- a dangling symlink or a symlink loop stays exit 1: it is present but broken, which is a finding
  about the artifact rather than a usage error;
- a SKILL.md file path is audited as its skill directory instead of refused;
- a .md agent outside an agents/ directory is refused rather than audited;
- a missing script library, a missing python3, a missing PyYAML, and no argument at all each exit 2.
  validate-provenance.sh already exited 2 for the last two; validate.sh now matches it.

.pre-commit-hooks.yaml is a published contract consumed by external repos. Both hook IDs and both
files: regexes are unchanged; only entry: and description: moved.

scripts/check-vale-style-sync.sh (413), scripts/sync-vale-styles.sh (21),
tests/test-check-vale-style-sync.sh (797) and agent-audit/scripts/README.md (47) are deleted. The
checker made 17 assertions: 6 compared the two Vale copies and are moot; 10 are rehomed into
tests/test-vale-wrap.sh (case 0, cases 28-31, and the suite's Vale-absent skip); and the
cross-manifest files: agreement check, which selected hooks by entry: and so could not survive both
hooks sharing one, is ported as case 33 pairing hooks by id:. Cases 28, 30 and 33 carry mutation
self-tests; narrowing the local skill prefilter to 6 of 38 SKILL.md files now fails the suite.

Skills go 39 to 38. Pre-push goes 9 repo-authored hooks to 8.

ADR: 0025
BREAKING-CHANGE: the skill-audit and agent-audit skills are removed. Both flows are served by
  factory-audit, which auto-detects whether it was handed a skill directory or an agent file.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01YR2CjVumUbEGWcMikcoXBD
2026-09-16 09:13:57 +00:00

14 KiB

Microsoft APM replaces the hand-authored plugin/marketplace model as this repo's authoring source of truth

Status: executed (2026-08-12, issue #90). All six plugins now carry apm.yml + .apm/ as their authoring source; .claude-plugin/marketplace.json and every plugin's plugin.json are apm pack-compiled output. Supersedes ADR-0001 ("Skills are distributed via plugins... each plugin contains its own skills/ directory") — in effect.

This repo replaces its hand-maintained Claude Code plugin/marketplace authoring model (.claude-plugin/marketplace.json + per-plugin plugin.json) with Microsoft APM (apm.yml + .apm/) as the authoring source of truth — an outright replacement of the authoring layer, not an additive overlay. This ADR records the decision from a grill-with-docs session on issue #88.

Context

Every plugin under plugins/<name>/ currently ships two hand-maintained manifests (.claude-plugin/plugin.json for Claude Code, root plugin.json for Copilot CLI) plus a hand-maintained root .claude-plugin/marketplace.json listing all plugins. Adding a provider means hand-authoring a third manifest shape; keeping the two existing ones in parity is itself a tracked concern (ADR-0006).

Research on Microsoft APM (plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/docs/microsoft-apm/) found that its documented "monorepo-hybrid" repo shape maps directly onto this repo's existing plugins/<name>/ layout: each plugin becomes its own apm.yml + .apm/{skills,agents,hooks,prompts,instructions}/ package, listed from a root apm.yml's marketplace: block. apm compile/apm pack generate per-target output — including a .claude-plugin/marketplace.json — from that vendor-neutral .apm/ tree, so provider manifests become compiled artifacts instead of hand-authored files, and new providers (Copilot, Gemini, Codex — all supported by apm runtime setup) no longer require a new hand-maintained manifest format.

Decision

  • The plugins/<name>/ monorepo-hybrid directory layout survives. .claude-plugin/marketplace.json and per-provider plugin.json files become compiled output via apm compile/apm pack, generated from apm.yml + .apm/ per plugin, extensible to other apm runtime-supported providers without hand-maintaining a separate manifest per provider.
  • This supersedes ADR-0001 ("Skills are distributed via plugins... each plugin contains its own skills/ directory"). Executed in issue #90: skills and agents physically moved to plugins/<name>/.apm/skills/ and plugins/<name>/.apm/agents/*.agent.md.
  • New operational tooling — apm-install (skill), apm-workflow (skill), apm-orchestrate (agent) — lands in kyberforge, tracked in issue #88 (https://git.dev.rkdr.net/Defame1297/holocron/issues/88).
  • Adapting skill-author/agent-author's routing to author .apm/-native content (retargeting to .apm/skills/, .apm/agents/ paths — the content these two skills author is still meaningful post-conversion) is deferred to issue #89 (https://git.dev.rkdr.net/Defame1297/holocron/issues/89). forge is out of scope for #89 — it stays untouched by this whole conversion effort and keeps routing to whatever the live author skills are at the time.
  • plugin-author/marketplace-author are not adapted — they are superseded and deleted. Unlike skill-author/agent-author, nothing in these two skills carries forward as authoring routing: apm compile/apm pack will generate .claude-plugin/marketplace.json and per-provider plugin.json directly from apm.yml + .apm/, so apm-install/apm-workflow/ apm-orchestrate (issue #88, already landed on this branch) fully replace what these two skills did. plugin-author/marketplace-author were deleted in issue #90's execution.
  • Translating the existing plugins into apm.yml + .apm/ and running the real conversion was executed under issue #90 (https://git.dev.rkdr.net/Defame1297/holocron/issues/90), which tracks that work through to merge.
  • CONTEXT.md's "Plugin"/"Plugin marketplace" glossary entries were rewritten in issue #90 to describe the compiled-output model directly, rather than carrying a forward-pointer to this ADR. Superseded 2026-08-17: CONTEXT.md was cut back to one-line definitions, and the compiled-output model is now described in docs/spec/architecture.md. The same trim deleted the "lint plugin" entry cited under Considered options below; that pointer now reads docs/spec/architecture.md's plugin scope table, which carries the repo-agnostic-versus-marketplace-specific argument.

Considered options

Additive/compile-layer only, no apm.yml (rejected). Keep plugin.json/marketplace.json hand-authored and bolt APM on top as an optional extra. Rejected: doesn't achieve the multi-provider compile-reuse goal APM's package model provides, and leaves the existing dual-manifest hand maintenance in place unchanged.

New standalone plugins/apm/ plugin (rejected). plugins/lint/ was split out of kyberforge specifically because Vale tooling is generic and repo-agnostic, not holocron-marketplace-specific (see docs/spec/architecture.md's plugin scope table) — the same argument applies to a generic apm CLI wrapper. The shipped apm-install/apm-workflow skills are, in fact, generic, repo-agnostic APM CLI documentation with no holocron-specific content, so a standalone plugins/apm/ would have been a defensible split on artifact content alone. Rejected anyway, in favor of kyberforge, because holocron is currently the only repo that needs this tooling — standing up a separate plugin for a single consumer isn't worth it yet. Accepted as an explicit tradeoff (same pattern as ADR-0011's gitea-workflow naming tradeoff) — worth revisiting if this tooling is ever reused outside holocron's own conversion.

Content migration out of plugin-author/marketplace-author

A content audit of plugin-author/marketplace-author (same grill-with-docs session as this correction) sorted what they document into three buckets:

  • Claude Code platform constraints — carried forward. Facts that stay true regardless of authoring model (reserved plugin-name prefixes; the agents/-directory stray-.md-file validator gotcha, ADR-0010; claude plugin validate as a required terminal check) have been added into apm-workflow's reference docs, since compiled output still has to satisfy these constraints post-conversion.
  • Dual-manifest artifacts — obsolete, not carried forward. Conventions that existed only because of hand-authored dual manifests (ADR-0006's version-parity/patch-bump rule, the CC-vs-Copilot field-placement split, dual-file mirroring) are obsolete under apm.yml's single-manifest model and were deliberately dropped.
  • Holocron policy choice — resolved in #90. marketplace-author's catalog-version convention (minor bump for package add/remove, patch bump for field-only updates) isn't an APM mechanic — apm doesn't enforce it, and has no native version-bump automation at all — so rather than building a new script, the convention is now documented as guidance inside apm-workflow's reference docs (references/marketplace.md for the root catalog version rule, references/configure.md for the per-package version-bump-on-content-edit rule), applied manually by whoever edits apm.yml.

Consequences

  • ADR-0001 is superseded (issue #90).
  • ADR-0006 (plugin-version-parity) is moot (issue #90): plugin.json/marketplace.json are now compiled output of a single apm.yml, so there's no second hand-authored file left to keep in parity, and plugin-author — the skill that enforced ADR-0006 — was deleted rather than adapted (see "Content migration" above).
  • ADR-0010 (agent sources relocated outside agents dir) was updated (issue #90) for agents now living at plugins/<name>/.apm/agents/*.agent.md — the directory path changed; the pre-existing .agent.md extension convention (ADR-0005/ADR-0010) and project/user scope are unaffected, per ADR-0016.
  • ADR-0014 (Vale prefilter ships from the plugin) had its hardcoded plugins/<name>/skills/... paths (the Vale prefilter is skill-scoped only; ADR-0014 never referenced a plugins/<name>/agents/... path) updated for the .apm/ nesting as part of issue #90's execution.
  • kyberforge gained three new artifacts (issue #88) before any conversion of existing content happened, then lost two (plugin-author/marketplace-author, deleted once issue #90 verified parity) — net version bump 1.3.1 → 1.4.0. The root marketplace catalog bumped 0.3.1 → 0.3.2 to match.
  • ADR-0016 (a narrower decision discovered while designing issue #89) turned out to gate how issue #90 had to re-author plugin-scope agents: .apm/agents/*.agent.md compiles verbatim to both Claude and Copilot, so those files carry only the fields in the apm-agent-allowlist section of plugins/kyberforge/.apm/skills/agent-audit/references/field-inventory.md (now factory-audit/references/agent-field-inventory.md, see ADR-0025) (as amended 2026-08-14: name/description/model/source_keys/disallowedTools) — existing dual-file <name>.md+<name>.agent.md pairs could not be raw-moved, only re-authored.
  • Two follow-up issues tracked the remaining work: #89 (skill-author/agent-author routing adaptation — closed, merged in #93) and #90 (the actual repo conversion, which also deleted plugin-author/marketplace-author — tracked through to merge; treat #90's own state as the authority on whether it has landed, not this line).
  • displayName is gone from all six compiled plugin.json files — accepted, not overlooked. apm.yml has no key that compiles to it: synthesize_plugin_json_from_apm_yml (apm_cli/deps/plugin_parser.py) emits only name, version, description, author, license, homepage, repository and keywords, and nothing in plugin_manifest.py adds displayName afterwards. So every plugins/<name>/.claude-plugin/plugin.json now carries author/description/homepage/keywords/license/name/repository/version (plus mcpServers for bin) and no displayName. The field is optional — plugins/kyberforge/docs/research/docs/claude-code-plugins/api-reference.md:14 lists displayName as Required: No, "Human-readable name shown in plugin manager" — which is why claude plugin validate --strict still passes on all six. The visible cost is that the plugin manager falls back to the bare name as each plugin's label. Accepted as the price of apm.yml being the single authoring source: re-injecting displayName post-compile would mean a second reinject_* workaround of the kind ADR-0017's amendment reserves for fields apm strips on a factually wrong premise, and apm's premise here is simply that the key does not exist in its schema.
  • owner.email was dropped by mistake and has been restored (2026-08-14). An earlier revision of this ADR listed owner.email alongside displayName as a field apm.yml "has no key that compiles to." That was wrong. apm_cli/marketplace/yml_schema.py:186 defines _AUTHOR_OBJECT_KEYS = frozenset({"name", "email", "url"}), and an email: under root apm.yml's marketplace.owner block was empirically confirmed to compile straight through into .claude-plugin/marketplace.json's owner. The key is declared in root apm.yml again and the compiled owner block is {name, email, url}. Only displayName is a genuine schema gap; this one was a documentation error that removed working configuration.
  • mattpocock-skills is pinned to an exact version, and the pin is advanced by hand. Pre-conversion the entry was {"repo": "mattpocock/skills", "source": "github"} — an unpinned reference that tracked the upstream default branch, so consumers got whatever was on it at install time. The conversion first replaced that with version: "^1.2.0", which was still not a pin: a caret range has nothing to freeze it, because there is no lockfile for marketplace.packages[]. apm pack re-resolved the range against upstream on every run, so an upstream v1.2.4 would immediately invalidate the committed ref/sha and fail apm-pack-check-clean with exit 4 — blocking every push in the repo, triggered by a third party at an unrelated moment, with no local change to explain it. Root apm.yml therefore declares an exact version: "1.2.3", which apm pack freezes into .claude-plugin/marketplace.json as ref: v1.2.3 + an explicit sha. Two consequences, both intended: the committed ref/sha is genuinely reproducible and cannot move under the repo, and picking up a new upstream release is a deliberate act — a human edits the version: string in root apm.yml and re-runs apm pack. apm has no version-bump automation (established under "Versioning" in issue #90's plan), so an ageing pin is the accepted cost of a push gate that only fires on this repo's own changes. Note the pin does not make the entry offline-resolvable: an exact version still requires a git ls-remote, which is why two pre-push hooks needed the network (see AGENTS.md). Superseded 2026-09-13: the mattpocock-skills entry has been removed from root apm.yml entirely, along with the codex marketplace output profile. No pre-push hook needs the network any longer.
  • Caveat on "Status: executed" above: issue #90's own execution comment flagged, before merge, that Claude Code's ability to actually load content out of .apm/ was unverified — that caveat turned out to be a real defect, not a formality: the native installer has zero awareness of .apm/ and reported Skills (0) Agents (0) Hooks (0) on every plugin installed from this marketplace. The manifest-compilation deliverable this ADR describes was genuinely complete; runtime discoverability was not. Fixed in ADR-0017 (a second, compiled flat-directory content mirror at each plugin root, generated by scripts/sync-plugin-content.sh) — see that ADR for the root cause and the fix. Superseded 2026-09-14: ADR-0024 deleted that mirror and its generator along with native claude plugin install support. The discoverability gap this paragraph describes is therefore no longer bridged — it is no longer a gap this repo has, because apm is now the only supported install path and apm reads .apm/ directly.