46e84d5e39
* chore(#2795): reviewer manifest body + registry harvest, validation, forward-compat Phase 2 of epic #2782 under ADR-2782. Delivers D1, D2, D3, D7, D8 and the four Phase-1 vocabulary amendments (A1-A4). - VALID_ROLES gains "reviewer"; the reviewer body is admissible on role:runtime (a host that is also a reviewer keeps one manifest) and on the new role:reviewer (a lane that is not an install target). A reviewer body on role:feature is an error: declaring one is an assertion of lane-ness. - validateReviewerBody + validateLaneProbe + validateLaneInvoke: nine closed enums, a transport discriminator selecting mutually-exclusive invoke sub-shapes, bounded probes (D7), and outputArg required-iff outputChannel is file-arg and forbidden otherwise. - Absent-safe (D4.1): only `undefined` is absent. null/{}/[]/false/0 are malformed assertions and error. 39 of 39 shipped capabilities depend on this. - collectReviewerWarnings: an unknown field inside the body warns, never errors, so a forward-built manifest degrades visibly instead of failing the build. - D8 uniqueness (slug / flags / reviewsSection) lives in validateCrossCapability, so it is enforced at build time over first-party AND at load time over the merged first-party union overlay set, with first-party-wins falling out of the loader's existing ordering rather than a new provenance check. - Config harvest widened past the role==="feature" branch in both the generator and the ownership loop. The often-cited cause of the stranded reviewer config keys -- the runtime body forbidding feature-only fields -- is not the mechanism: `config` is not in FEATURE_FIELDS_FORBIDDEN_ON_RUNTIME. The cause is two harvest sites that never read it. Verified inert: no shipped capability declares config on a non-feature role, and the generated registry is unchanged. Three ADR corrections are folded in (Phase 1 set the precedent of amending in-phase): the misattributed config-stranding cause, D3's inverted profile-membership claim, and the specified capability folder names for lm_studio / llama_cpp, which would have failed the id kebab-case invariant. Closes #2795 * chore(#2795): collapse nine enum checks into one validateEnumField helper Standards-axis review findings, both applied: - Duplicated Code: the enum-membership + enumerate-the-members error shape repeated near-verbatim at nine call sites. Routing them through one helper makes "the error names its valid members" structural rather than a convention repeated nine times, where it would drift. That property is load-bearing until Phase 6 ships the prose reference, because these errors are currently the only documentation of the vocabulary. - Speculative Generality: the isReservedName() pre-check on every enum field was inert. A VALID_* set never contains __proto__/constructor/prototype, so membership alone already rejects them, and "must be one of: ..." is more actionable than "is a reserved name". The literal guards remain where they do real work -- the key-derived write sites in the registry generator and the claim() accumulator. The reserved-name test now asserts all three reserved names are rejected via enum membership, rather than one name via a branch that no longer exists. * fix(#2795): align lane slug grammar with Phase 1 and wire the load-time diagnostic channel Spec-axis review findings, both applied. (1) The slug grammar had diverged from Phase 1's core descriptor. Phase 1 exports LANE_SLUG_RE = /^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9_-]*$/ (leading digit permitted); the manifest validator required a leading LETTER. A slug the core descriptor accepts -- a model-named lane such as 4o-mini -- would have been rejected by the manifest validator, which is exactly the translation layer ADR-2782 exists to delete. It was inert only because all eleven shipped slugs begin with a letter, so nothing else would have caught it until a third party shipped such a lane. The grammar cannot be reduced to one definition: Phase 1's module compiles to gitignored build output, and capability-validator.cjs is a committed plain .cjs that must load on a fresh worktree before build:lib has ever run. That makes this the repo's DEFECT.GENERATIVE-FIX class, so the duplication now carries a parity assertion -- laneSlugGrammarMatchesPhase1Descriptor -- which compares both the source grammar and the accept/reject verdict for a shared input set, and fails if the two ever drift again. (2) collectReviewerWarnings had exactly one caller: the build-time generator, which only ever sees first-party in-repo manifests. The real third-party overlay loader never called it and ValidatorModule did not declare it, so ADR-2782 D4.3 -- an unknown field inside a reviewer body is ignored WITH A WARNING -- surfaced nowhere at runtime, which is precisely the case D4.3 exists for. loadRegistry now collects those diagnostics on the accept path, behind a typeof-guard (an older built validator without the function still loads) and a try/catch (ADR-1244 D2's never-crash contract outranks a diagnostic). They land in a NEW OverlayMeta.diagnostics field rather than OverlayMeta.warnings, because warnings records capabilities that were SKIPPED and a consumer treating every entry as inactive would mislabel a working lane. Covered end-to-end by overlayLaneWithUnknownFieldIsAcceptedAndDiagnosed, which drives a real global-scope overlay through loadRegistry and asserts the lane is accepted, produces no skip warning, and yields a diagnostic naming the field. * fix(#2795): make the reviewer validators honour their documented totality contract Isolated adversarial review finding (MAJOR), reproduced by execution. validateReviewerBody documents itself as "TOTAL: returns an array of error strings for ANY input and never throws", and the overlay loader contracts every validator to RETURN errors -- #1461 OVL-1 records a validator that THREW and would have crashed every consumer of loadRegistry. The contract was false at ten sites: JSON.stringify throws on a BigInt and on a circular structure, and every enum/scalar rejection path interpolated the rejected value into its own rejection message. Reading the value could throw too, before any message was built, via a throwing getter or a Proxy get/ownKeys trap. Not reachable through a capability.json today -- every ingestion path is a plain JSON.parse of file text, which cannot express any of those shapes. Fixed anyway: the contract is stated on an EXPORTED function, and a caller must not have to re-derive today's reachability analysis to know whether it holds. Two layers, because serialization safety alone is insufficient: - describeValue() renders any value without throwing, so messages stay useful (a BigInt now reads "got: 10n" rather than degrading to a generic fallback). - A structural try/catch around validateReviewerBody and collectReviewerWarnings makes the guarantee absolute rather than argued, covering read-time throws that fire before any message exists. The same review found the property test guarding this contract was FALSE CONFIDENCE, which is the more important half. fc.anything() at default constraints emits no BigInt, no circular reference, no getter and no Proxy -- 20,000 sampled draws produced zero of each -- so the test was named for a contract its generator could not reach. Even withBigInt is insufficient under whole-value fuzzing, because the defect needs an exotic value in a specifically NAMED field and random key names never land on one. The property is now field-targeted across all twelve reviewer fields, and a companion test enumerates the shapes fast-check cannot generate at all (BigInt, circular, throwing getter, symbol, function, null-prototype) across scalar positions, array-element positions, and read-time traps. Verified red-before-green: with the fix reverted both property tests fail; with it restored all 119 pass. * chore(#2795): backfill changeset pr number to 2823
Architecture Decision Records
This directory contains Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) for GSD.
Each ADR documents one architectural decision: what was decided, why, and what consequences follow. ADRs are append-only. Amendments extend existing ADRs with a dated section rather than replacing them.
Reading this corpus
Start with the index below, and respect the status. The index is grouped so that the first table — Active decisions — is the set that governs the system as it stands. An ADR in Superseded, Retired, and Legacy is historical: it records what was once decided and names what replaced it. Do not cite it as current architecture.
Two things the index makes explicit, because getting them wrong has actually misled readers here:
- "Read first" on an active ADR points at a broader ADR that now frames it. A decision can be entirely correct and still not be the whole picture. The runtime capability descriptor (ADR-1016) is live and load-bearing, but ADR-1239 (EoS — GSD as an Embeddable Orchestration Engine) subsumes it as the declarative adapter and inverts its direction: GSD is the engine a host embeds, not an installer that projects onto a host. For how GSD meets a host, EoS is the current frame.
Proposedmeans not ratified — and it is kept honest. On 2026-07-17 the corpus was audited against the shipped tree and nine ADRs whose decisions had demonstrably shipped were ratified toAccepted, each carrying a dated Ratification section with the evidence (see ADR-857 for the fullest example). The ADRs that remainProposedareProposedfor a reason recorded in the file — an unmet acceptance criterion, an outstanding phase, or a successor ADR already planned — not through neglect. Trust the label; if you think it is wrong, prove it in a dated section and see Ratifying a staleProposed.
Naming Convention
New ADRs use issue#-prefix slug naming:
docs/adr/<issue#>-<kebab-slug>.md
Examples: 2264-golden-parity-redesign.md, 1239-gsd-embeddable-orchestration-engine.md.
Why
Two developers computing "next ADR number" locally against main will independently pick the same integer and both ship. The collision is already on disk — 0010-* exists twice and 0011-* exists three times. GitHub issue numbers are server-assigned and atomic: the moment you open an issue, that number is reserved globally. Two PRs that both edit the ### Fixed block of CHANGELOG.md always conflict on merge — two PRs that each use a distinct issue# as their ADR prefix never collide. Same shape, same solution.
Legacy naming is not Legacy status
Files 0001-* through 0012-* (and 0174-*) are preserved as immutable historical record of the old local-compute numbering. The duplicate 0010-* and the three-way 0011-* are documented residue of that convention — not patterns to imitate. Do not renumber them.
This is a statement about filenames only. Many of those ADRs are Accepted and load-bearing today (ADR-0002, ADR-0004, ADR-0008, ADR-0009). An old filename says nothing about whether a decision still holds. The Legacy status in the table below is a separate claim — see the vocabulary.
Because 0010-* and 0011-* each resolve to more than one file, a bare cross-reference like "ADR-0011" is genuinely ambiguous. Link the file (see Lifecycle rules).
Full process
See CONTRIBUTING.md — "Proposing an ADR or PRD" for the end-to-end workflow: opening the issue, waiting for approval, naming the file, and submitting the PR.
PRDs live in docs/prd/, not here. (0011-review-default-reviewers-prd.md predates that directory and is kept in place as frozen historical record.)
Lifecycle rules
These are enforced by scripts/gen-adr-index.cjs, which runs in CI via npm run lint:generated-sync. A violation fails the build with the exact file and fix.
1. Every ADR declares one status from the canonical vocabulary
The first word of the Status field must be one of:
| Status | Means | Obligation |
|---|---|---|
Accepted |
Decided and in force. Cite it. | — |
Proposed |
Decided in principle, not ratified. Do not cite as settled. | If the work has demonstrably shipped, ratify it (below) — do not leave the label lying. |
Superseded |
A specific newer ADR replaced this decision. | Must name the successor as a file link. |
Retired |
What this ADR decided no longer exists at all, and no single ADR replaced it. | Say what was removed and when. |
Legacy |
Frozen historical record, kept for provenance; not a pattern to follow. | Say why it is frozen. |
Prose may follow the token (Superseded by [ADR-0174](0174-retire-gsd-sdk-package-boundary.md) (2026-05-23); originally Accepted (2026-05-09)). Both the bullet form (- **Status:** Accepted) and the table form (| **Status** | Accepted |) are accepted.
2. Cross-references to other ADRs are file links, never bare ids
Write [ADR-0011](0011-skill-surface-budget-module.md), not ADR-0011. Bare ids are ambiguous for 0010/0011, and unlinked references cannot be checked.
If you mean an issue, write #857 — not ADR-857. (An ADR and its owning issue often share a number; that is intentional and not a conflict.)
3. Supersession and subsumption are symmetric
These are different relations. Do not conflate them:
Supersedes/Superseded by— the target is replaced. Its status becomesSuperseded.Subsumes/Subsumed by— the target still holds, but a broader ADR now frames it. Its status is unchanged; it becomes a component of the larger decision.
If A declares either relation toward B, B must record the reciprocal. A one-way pointer is the failure this corpus actually suffered: ADR-1239 declared it subsumed four ADRs, none of which said so, and none of which pointed back — so a reader landing on any of them concluded the superseded frame was the way forward.
Only an Accepted ADR is owed the back-link. A Proposed ADR's claim is prospective: it has not taken effect, so its target is not marked. On ratification, the check begins demanding the back-links.
4. The declared id matches the filename
An H1 of # ADR-0175: … in a file named 218-*.md is a rename that never finished. The id in the title must match the filename's prefix.
Ratifying a stale Proposed
A stale Proposed is not cosmetic: it tells contributors and agents that live architecture is an unbuilt idea. Fix it — but on evidence, not vibes.
The bar. All four must hold before flipping to Accepted:
- The decided mechanism demonstrably exists in the tree — name the files, symbols, and tests.
- The owning issue is closed as completed. A closed issue is not proof:
stateReasonof not planned / duplicate means the decision was dropped (that isLegacyorRetired, notAccepted). - No material part is unshipped. If the ADR defines phases and one is outstanding, or states its own bar for acceptance and that bar is unmet, it stays
Proposed. - No later ADR supersedes it, and no approved issue already plans its graduation as separate work.
The procedure. Set the status to Accepted — ratified <date> (originally Proposed <date>), add a dated ## Ratification section holding the evidence, then run node scripts/gen-adr-index.cjs --write. If the ADR claims to supersede or subsume others, the gate will now demand their back-links — that is the point. Ratify deliberately.
Two traps worth knowing, both hit during the 2026-07-17 audit:
- Shipped code is necessary, not sufficient. Eight ADRs had every named module, symbol, and test present and their epics closed — and still failed the bar: ADR-2264's own headline acceptance criterion is unmet in the tree, ADR-230's decided branch protection does not match the live API, ADR-660's namesake mechanism is performed by hand, and ADR-959 has an approved issue planning its graduation as its own ADR. Verify the decision, not just the code.
- "Supersedes" is often "subsumes". Read what the ADR means before the gate makes you act on what it says. ADR-857 said "Supersedes (generalizes)"; taken literally, ratifying it would have stamped two live seams (ADR-0011, ADR-58) as dead. The parenthetical was the truth; the field name was wrong.
Maintaining the index
The index is generated. Do not hand-edit it. Everything between the ADR-INDEX:START / ADR-INDEX:END markers is derived from the ADR files themselves:
node scripts/gen-adr-index.cjs # print the index
node scripts/gen-adr-index.cjs --write # regenerate it into this file
node scripts/gen-adr-index.cjs --check # CI: fail if stale or invalid
After adding an ADR, or changing any ADR's status or relations, run --write and commit the result. npm run lint:generated-sync runs --check in CI, so a missing or stale row fails the build rather than rotting silently.
This replaces a hand-maintained table that had drifted to 40 of 65 ADRs — the entire capability family and EoS itself were missing from it, which is precisely why the ADRs a reader most needed were the ones they could not find.
Index
Active decisions (53)
These govern the system as it stands. Cite these.
| ADR | Title | Status | Read first |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADR-0001 | Dispatch policy module as single seam for query execution outcomes | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0002 | Command Contract Validation Module | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0003 | Model Catalog Module as single source of truth for agent profiles and runtime tier defaults | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0004 | Planning Workspace Module as single seam for worktree and workstream state | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0006 | Planning Path Projection Module for SDK query handlers | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0008 | Installer Migration Module owns install-time upgrade safety | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0009 | Shell Command Projection Module owns runtime-aware OS command rendering | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0011 | review.default_reviewers config key scopes the no-flag /gsd-review fan-out |
Accepted | — |
| ADR-0011 | Skill Surface Budget Module owns install-time profile staging and runtime surface control | Accepted | ADR-857 |
| ADR-15 | Cross-AI Plan Convergence via Existing Orchestration Commands | Accepted | — |
| ADR-22 | Plan-vs-codebase drift guard: defaults and symbol-resolver seam | Accepted | — |
| ADR-58 | Runtime Install Policy Module owns the typed install-plan projection | Accepted | ADR-1239, ADR-857 |
| ADR-0174 | Retire @opengsd/gsd-sdk package boundary — single-runtime collapse | Accepted | — |
| ADR-218 | Harden release-workflow version validation — reject leading zeros and pre-check npm | Accepted | — |
| ADR-227 | Input validation must check semantic shape, not just type | Accepted | — |
| ADR-415 | Prevent stale-base reintroduction of retired runtime tokens | Accepted | — |
| ADR-452 | Adopt standard ESLint flat-config lint harness | Accepted | — |
| ADR-456 | Test-rigor architecture — deterministic scheduling, antagonistic tier, typed-surface mandate, and delete-bad-tests policy | Accepted | — |
| ADR-457 | Generation model for bin/lib/*.cjs type safety |
Accepted | — |
| ADR-550 | spec-phase probe pattern and prohibition contract | Accepted | — |
| ADR-0656 | Research Module — L2-hybrid seam for cached, curated-first research | Accepted | — |
| ADR-766 | Claude Code Plugin Manifest Module owns the projection of gsd-core surfaces onto the Claude Code plugin contract | Accepted | — |
| ADR-857 | Capability system — five-step loop as core, features as plug-ins behind Loop Extension Points | Accepted | — |
| ADR-894 | Capability declaration format + registry generation | Accepted | ADR-1239 |
| ADR-959 | Capability Command Contribution | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1016 | Runtime Capability Descriptor | Accepted | ADR-1239 |
| ADR-1235 | Migrate agent conversion to the descriptor-driven install path | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1239 | GSD as an Embeddable Orchestration Engine | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1244 | Capability Ecosystem: third-party authoring, versioned manifests, and URL import/upgrade/remove | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1372 | Canonical markdown-structure parsing — the markdown-sectionizer seam |
Accepted | — |
| ADR-1411 | Resolution must report provenance, not fall open silently | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1508 | Runtime Artifact Conversion Module owns per-runtime content rewriting | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1517 | Reviewer instances — bounded config surface for same-adapter multi-model review | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1577 | Untrusted-input boundary + opt-in injection blocking | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1593 | Skill mapping & converter methodology across runtimes | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1610 | workflow & agent size-budget ratchet (per-file byte baseline + tier hard caps) | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1703 | Cross-platform portability enforcement as AST ESLint rules | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1769 | STATE.md Transition Module — intent-based transitions over scattered RMW callbacks | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1787 | /gsd:next smart-entry front door delegates advancement to /gsd:progress --next |
Accepted | — |
| ADR-1817 | STATE.md rebuild — derivability contract (capstone transition) | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1820 | Spec-Optional Predicate Rail — the Spec-Section Detection Module, the fallback toggle, and the SPEC↔probe precedence contract | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1866 | agent_skills dual injection — orchestrator-side + agent-side self-load | Accepted | — |
| ADR-1990 | Existing Code Onboarding Module owns deterministic repo-state detection and onboarding route selection | Accepted | — |
| ADR-2008 | Generic gate-predicate evaluator (command-exit-zero) |
Accepted | — |
| ADR-2121 | Phase-Identifier Parsing Consolidation | Accepted | — |
| ADR-2143 | Markdown Table Model, Bounded Mutation, and Fail-Loud Consolidation (#1372 part 2) | Accepted | — |
| ADR-2164 | Statusline draws its data boundary at local, read-only sources | Accepted | — |
| ADR-2207 | STATE.md Status lifecycle — phase-completion writes an intermediate state; milestone-close owns termination |
Accepted | — |
| ADR-2346 | Command Dispatch Completion | Accepted | — |
| ADR-2629 | Phase effort is estimated against a calibrated smart-zone budget, not a static heuristic | Accepted | — |
| ADR-2719 | Emitted-artifact attribution — replace the committed parity fixtures with a computed conservation law | Accepted | — |
| ADR-2782 | Reviewer Lane — the cross-AI reviewer handoff becomes a declared capability surface | Accepted | — |
| ADR-3660 | Runtime Artifact Layout Module owns per-runtime artifact placement | Accepted | ADR-1239 |
Proposed (8)
Decided in principle, not yet ratified. Do not cite as settled architecture.
| ADR | Title | Status | Read first |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADR-230 | Introduce next as a long-lived integration branch |
Proposed | — |
| ADR-443 | Unified cross-provider effort controls and fast-mode-aware routing | Proposed | — |
| ADR-612 | Bracket Phase-ID Convention | Proposed | — |
| ADR-660 | Release from the head of next; immutable release tags; @next dist-tag as the RC surface |
Proposed | — |
| ADR-1143 | Claude orchestration capability — Workflow tool (ultracode) as a runtime-gated loop execution backend | Proposed | — |
| ADR-1213 | Capability write side — the Capability State Writer | Proposed | — |
| ADR-1606 | prohibition-enforcement verify-time seam | Proposed | — |
| ADR-1671 | Dynamic context management platform | Proposed | — |
Superseded, Retired, and Legacy (8)
Historical record. Do not follow these — each names what replaced it, or why it was retired.
| ADR | Title | Status | Replaced by |
|---|---|---|---|
| ADR-0005 | SDK Architecture seam map for query/runtime surfaces | Superseded | ADR-0174 |
| ADR-0007 | SDK Package Seam Module owns SDK-to-get-shit-done-redux compatibility | Superseded | ADR-0174 |
| ADR-0010 | File Operation Engine Module owns safe runtime/config file mutations | Superseded | ADR-0009 |
| ADR-0010 | Skill Surface Budget Module owns install-time skill listing curation | Superseded | ADR-0011 |
| ADR-0011 | PRD — review.default_reviewers config key for /gsd-review reviewer selection |
Legacy | — |
| ADR-0012 | CommandRoutingHub as single dispatch seam for CJS command families | Superseded | ADR-0174 |
| ADR-2264 | Redesign golden-install-parity — single-source manifest builder + split invariant | Superseded | ADR-2719 |
| ADR-3524 | CJS↔SDK hard seam — one source of truth per Shared Module | Superseded | ADR-0174 |
69 ADRs. Generated by scripts/gen-adr-index.cjs — run --write after adding or restatusing an ADR.
Seam map
Orientation for the module-ownership ADRs. This section is prose and hand-maintained; the index above is the authority on status.
How GSD meets a host — start at ADR-1239 (EoS). It is the current frame and subsumes the descriptor/projection ADRs (ADR-1016, ADR-58, ADR-3660, ADR-894) as adapters beneath it.
The SDK seam map is gone. ADR-0005 was once the entry point for SDK module ownership; it is superseded by ADR-0174, which retired the @opengsd/gsd-sdk package boundary entirely. There is no sdk/ tree. Read ADR-0174 for the single-runtime collapse; the seam-Module vocabulary survives under one src/.
ADR-0006 documents how query handlers project planning paths (cwd → effectiveRoot → .planning/<project>/...). Cross-reference the Planning Workspace Module (ADR-0004) for workstream pointer policy.
ADR-0008 documents the Installer Migration Module for safe install-time moves, removals, config rewrites, and user-data preservation.
ADR-0009 documents the Shell Command Projection Module seam for runtime-aware projection of installer-owned command text and projection IR. Its Phases 3–4 absorbed the File Operation Engine Module (ADR-0010).
ADR-0011 documents the Skill Surface Budget Module for install-time skill/agent profile staging (--profile=<name>, .gsd-profile marker, requires: closure) and the Phase 2 runtime /gsd:surface command.
ADR-1411 establishes the Resolution Provenance principle: context resolution (config loading, project-root anchoring, workstream resolution) must report its provenance rather than fall open silently to defaults. It is the resolution-side analog of ADR-227 (input-validation shape).