msd-core/docs/adr/0002-command-contract-validation-module.md

Command Contract Validation Module

• Status: Accepted
• Date: 2026-05-05

We decided to centralize the commands/msd/*.md file contract into a single validation seam enforced at two layers: a fast lint script (scripts/lint-command-contract.cjs) that runs as a pre-test CI step, and a behavioral regression test (tests/command-contract.test.cjs) that validates the full contract against the live filesystem.

Decision

The command file contract defines what makes a valid commands/msd/*.md:

• name: field present, non-empty, matches msd:* or msd-* (ns- commands use msd-)
• description: field present and non-empty
• allowed-tools: block present and non-empty, all entries from the canonical tool set
• Every @-reference inside <execution_context> blocks resolves to an existing file on disk
• @-references inside <execution_context> blocks appear on their own line (no trailing prose)
• Every msd-core/workflows/*.md file is reachable from at least one commands/, agents/, or skills/ loader, transitively through msd-core/** (#3560)

The first five checks are per-file frontmatter/body rules. The sixth is a different concern in kind: a repo-level reachability graph, computed once per run rather than per command file. It walks every markdown file under commands/, agents/, and skills/ as loader seeds, then follows references transitively through msd-core/** (not just msd-core/workflows/, since a references/ or templates/ file can itself name a workflow path) until every reachable workflow file is marked. Any msd-core/workflows/*.md file left unmarked is reported as an orphan.

A reference is recognized in three shapes: an eager @-include (the same <execution_context> syntax the first five checks already parse), a lazy path named only in prose or code that a command reads on demand rather than inlines, and a parent-relative sub-file path (execute-phase/steps/post-merge-gate.md) implicitly rooted under workflows/.

Reachability is seeded only from loaders, never from a workflow file's own content — a workflow that references itself, or two workflows that reference only each other, must still be reported as unreachable, since no command, agent, or skill loader ever actually opens them. docs/ and test fixtures deliberately do not count as loaders: a path merely mentioned in documentation or a test does not make it reachable by any runtime — only commands/, agents/, and skills/ do.

Context

Before this ADR, the command contract was enforced inconsistently:

• tests/skill-frontmatter-contract.test.cjs (folds former enh-2790-skill-consolidation, consolidation epic #1969) checked existence and frontmatter of specific post-consolidation commands
• tests/docs-update.test.cjs (folds former bug-3135-capture-backlog-workflow, consolidation epic #1969) checked execution_context @-ref resolution (added 2026-05-05)
• No test checked allowed-tools validity, name: convention, or description: non-emptiness across all commands simultaneously

This meant any PR touching a command file could break the contract without a single test catching it. The add-backlog.md gap (#3135) is a concrete example: the workflow file was missing for the full consolidation cycle before a targeted regression test was written.

Additionally, 40 of 65 command files contained redundant prose @-references — the same path appearing once in <execution_context> (which loads the file) and again in <process> body text (inert). This added ~900 tokens of dead weight per invocation and created a drift seam where prose refs could go stale independently of the executable execution_context ref.

The two largest commands (debug.md, thread.md) embedded their full implementation inline rather than delegating to workflow files, causing ~4,400 tokens of implementation detail to load as part of the skills index description on every session regardless of whether those commands are used.

Consequences

• A single lint-command-contract.cjs script enforces frontmatter invariants across all 65 commands in milliseconds, runs before the test suite in CI
• tests/command-contract.test.cjs replaces the scattered contract coverage in enh-2790 and bug-3135, becoming the authoritative behavioral contract test for the entire command surface
• Redundant prose @-refs removed from 40 command files (~900 tokens/invocation recovered)
• debug.md and thread.md refactored to the workflow-delegation pattern (~4,400 tokens removed from eager system-prompt load)
• workflows/extract_learnings.md renamed to workflows/extract-learnings.md to align with the hyphen convention used by all other workflow files
• The execution_context block is the single authoritative declaration of what a command loads — no duplication in prose