Files
msd-core/docs/reference/capability-manifest.md
Tom Boucher 86fa2917d7 enh(#3866): dispatch step and contribution hooks at verify:pre (#3869)
* test(#3866): pin that verify:pre must dispatch every hook kind

verify-work.md's verify_pre_hooks step dispatches only `kind == "gate"`, so
getWiredKinds reports verify:pre -> {gate} and gen-capability-registry rejects
any capability declaring a step or contribution there. The verify lane is
therefore closed to capabilities that want to contribute to what UAT covers
rather than refuse to let it start.

Failing-first: the step, contribution, and exact-kind-set rows are RED; the
pre-existing gate row is a green regression pin so the new arms cannot orphan
the arm verify:pre already had.

Refs #3866

* feat(#3866): dispatch step and contribution hooks at verify:pre

verify_pre_hooks dispatched `kind == "gate"` only, so getWiredKinds reported
verify:pre -> {gate} and gen-capability-registry's validateHooksWired rejected
any capability declaring a step or contribution there. A capability could
refuse to let UAT start; it could not contribute to what UAT covers.

Add contribution and step arms mirroring execute:wave:post, deferring to
references/loop-hook-dispatch.md and carrying its ref.command in-context
validation guard ahead of any shell-use prose. A verify:pre step is advisory:
it never blocks the start of UAT and an erroring step is routed by its own
onError. The gate arm and its check guard are untouched.

Give extract_tests an additive consumption seam for the artefacts those steps
declare via the existing steps[].produces field -- no new registry field, no
new ordering, no invented filename. Manifest-supplied artefact names are
validated in-context against an allowlist and resolved only inside PHASE_DIR.
With no producing step the derivation is unchanged, pinned by test rather than
asserted in prose.

Review findings folded in: the artefact-name allowlist (isolated adversarial
pass), the artefact-shape contract and the seam-inertness tests (spec axis),
and the reference/how-to split so one constraint has one source of truth
(standards axis).

Closes #3866

* chore(#3866): backfill changeset PR number

---------

Co-authored-by: sim <sim@local>
2026-08-25 18:07:29 -04:00

31 KiB
Raw Blame History

Capability Manifest Reference (capability.json)

Canonical ADRs: ADR-1244 · ADR-894 · ADR-1016 See also: How to develop a capability · Capability Command Reference

Each capability is a folder capabilities/<id>/ (or an overlay root ~/.gsd/capabilities/<id>/ / .gsd/capabilities/<id>/) containing one capability.json declaration. The file is schema-validated JSON with a common envelope plus a role-typed body (role: "feature", role: "runtime", or role: "reviewer").


Envelope fields

These fields are present for role: "feature", role: "runtime", and role: "reviewer" capabilities.

Field Type Required Description
id string (kebab-case) Yes Unique identifier; must equal the folder name. The prefix gsd-, gsd-core-, and anthropic- are reserved for first-party use.
role "feature" | "runtime" | "reviewer" Yes Discriminator that selects the body schema. "reviewer" is for lane-only capabilities that ship a reviewer body and nothing else — see Reviewer body below.
version semver string Yes (1.6.0+) Semantic version of this capability. The registry rejects a manifest without one.
title string Yes Short human-readable label. Must be a non-empty string.
description string Yes Longer summary sentence. Must be a non-empty string.
tier "core" | "standard" | "full" Yes Source of truth for install-profile membership and surface cluster assignment. tier propagates via the requires-closure; install profiles are generated from it.
requires string[] Yes Capability id values this capability depends on. Must be present as an array (use [] when there are no dependencies). Each entry must exist in the registry, be acyclic, and be tier-monotone (a core capability may not require a standard or full capability; a standard capability may not require a full capability).
engines object No Host-compatibility constraint. Sub-field: gsd — semver range string (e.g. ">=1.6.0 <3.0.0"). Acts as a hard gate at install and at load; a mismatch blocks installation and causes the overlay to be skipped with a warning at load time.
runtimeCompat object Yes (role: "feature") Declares which host runtimes this capability can surface through. Validated for every role: "feature" capability (a feature manifest without it fails validation). Sub-fields: supported — a non-empty array of kebab-case runtime ids, or the single wildcard ["*"] for a runtime-agnostic capability; unsupported — an array of kebab-case runtime ids (the wildcard is not permitted here); notes — optional object mapping a runtime id (or "*") to a non-empty explanatory string. The wildcard "*" may not be mixed with concrete ids in the same array, and the reserved names __proto__/constructor/prototype are rejected.
compatVersions object No Graceful-downgrade table mapping "<capVersion>" to "<min gsd version>". Only meaningful for sources that enumerate versions (git tags, registry, npm); a bare tarball URL carries one version and simply blocks on incompatibility.
integrity string No sha512-<base64> hash of the capability bundle. Verified before extraction when present; mismatch aborts install.
provenance object No { sourceRepo: string, commit: string }. Emitted in CI for first-party and curated capabilities.
author object No { name: string, email?: string, url?: string }.
homepage string No URL.
repository string No URL.
license string No SPDX licence identifier (e.g. "MIT").
keywords string[] No Arbitrary search tags.

Feature body (role: "feature")

Feature capabilities declare owned artefacts, lifecycle hooks, a federated configuration slice, and loop extension registrations.

skills and agents

Sub-field Type Description
skills string[] Owned skill stems. Exactly one capability may own each stem across the entire merged registry (first-party ∪ overlay).
agents string[] Owned agent stems. Same uniqueness constraint as skills.

The skills stems declared here are disclosed by name as instruction surfaces in the pre-install consent summary (ADR-2363). Bodies are installed verbatim and are not content-scanned — see the capability trust model.

agents are classified as an instruction surface too (ADR-2363 D3), but the stems declared here are not disclosed at the prompt: a third-party capability's agents[] are never staged into the agent's instruction context — the staging path that unions third-party skills into a runtime's skills directory has no equivalent for agents — so naming them would claim a surface that does not exist. This does not make agents safe or inert; it means the mechanism does not yet reach them.

hooks

Non-loop lifecycle hooks.

Sub-field Type Description
event string Hook event name (host-runtime specific).
script string Path to the hook script, relative to the capability root. The hook command written into the host settings is the realpath-confined absolute path to this script (so it always runs the bundle's own file regardless of the working directory) and is POSIX single-quoted (so an install prefix containing spaces cannot break it). For shell safety the path must contain only [A-Za-z0-9._/-] — no whitespace, no shell metacharacters (; | & $ ` ( ) < > * ? [ ] { } ! ~ # ' " \ newline), no leading -, no absolute path, and no .. segment. A script outside this allowlist fails validation and the capability is rejected.

config — federated config-key schema slice

The config field is an object whose keys are federated configuration keys contributed by this capability. Each key must be absent from the central config-schema and absent from every other capability's config object (collision fails the build gate). Each entry has the following shape:

Property Type Description
type "boolean" | "string" | "number" | "enum" Value type.
default (type-consistent) Default value; must be consistent with type.
description string Human-readable explanation of the key's effect.
values string[] enum only. Exhaustive list of permitted string values.

steps

Steps run at a loop extension point as independent units. Ordering within a point is derived from produces/consumes (topological sort; capability-id is the tiebreak).

Sub-field Type Required Description
point string Yes One of the 12 valid loop extension point identifiers (see table below).
ref object Yes The dispatch target. Exactly one of { "skill": "<stem>" }, { "agent": "<stem>" }, or { "command": "<name>" } (the three are mutually exclusive). A skill/agent stem must be declared in this capability's skills/agents array.
produces string[] Yes Artefact names this step produces. Must be present as an array (use [] when it produces none); an omitted produces fails validation. No two capability steps may produce the same artefact at the same point.
consumes string[] Yes Artefact names this step consumes. Must be present as an array (use [] when it consumes none); an omitted consumes fails validation.
onError "skip" | "halt" Yes Behaviour on failure; must be present and one of "skip" or "halt" (an omitted onError fails validation). Steps are purely additive — they never halt or redirect the host workflow on their own; a blocking precondition is expressed as a gate.
when string No Dotted config key; the step is active only when the key is truthy. Evaluated deterministically at render time; phase-context applicability is the skill's own responsibility.
fragment object No Optional inline-or-file prompt fragment attached to the step, with the same { "path": "<relative path>" } or { "inline": "<string>" } semantics as a contribution's fragment. A path is materialised (read and inlined) at load time, resolved against the capability directory and confined to it (.. traversal is rejected).

contributions

Contributions inject a fragment into a named agent role's prompt at a loop extension point. Multiple contributions into the same agent role render as ordered labelled blocks (<contribution from="<id>">…</contribution>).

Sub-field Type Required Description
point string Yes One of the 12 valid loop extension point identifiers.
into string Yes Agent role name. Must be a role published by that loop extension point in the host contract.
produces string[] Yes Artefact names this contribution produces. Use [] when it produces none.
consumes string[] Yes Artefact names this contribution reads. Use [] when it reads none.
fragment object Yes Either { "path": "<relative path>" } (file content) or { "inline": "<string>" } (literal text).
when string No Dotted config key; activates the contribution conditionally.
onError "skip" | "halt" No Behaviour on failure.

gates

Gates check a condition at a loop extension point and optionally block progression.

Sub-field Type Required Description
point string Yes One of the 12 valid loop extension point identifiers.
check object Yes One of three forms (see table below). Must be present as an object; an omitted check fails validation.
blocking boolean Yes Must be present and a boolean; an omitted blocking fails validation. When true, a failed check halts the loop at this point.
onError "skip" | "halt" Yes Behaviour when the check itself errors; must be present and one of "skip" or "halt" (an omitted onError fails validation).
when string No Dotted config key; activates the gate conditionally.

check forms:

Form Shape Blocking permitted Notes
Query { "query": "<gsd_run query>" } Yes Deterministic first-party code.
Predicate { "predicate": { "kind": "artifact-exists" | "config-equals" | …, … } } Yes Declarative; no code path.
Agent verdict { "agentVerdict": { "ref": …, "prompt": … } } No (forced advisory) LLM evaluation; non-deterministic checks may not halt the loop.

Valid point values

The 12 loop extension points are a closed, additive-only vocabulary. Every steps, contributions, and gates entry must use one of these identifiers exactly.

A valid point is necessary but not sufficient: each host workflow decides, per point, which hook kinds its dispatch text handles, and a point may dispatch a subset. The registry build derives the real answer from the host workflows (getWiredKinds() in scripts/gen-loop-host-contract.cjs) and rejects a manifest declaring a kind the point does not dispatch — so an unsupported combination is a build-time error naming the point, the kind, and the kinds that point does cover. It is never a hook that renders and is then silently dropped.

verify:pre dispatches all three kinds. A step there is advisory: it runs before UAT begins and never blocks it — a precondition that must halt verification is a gate. Its produces artefact names are consumed additively by the verify workflow's extract_tests step, which can deepen what UAT covers but cannot suppress a checkpoint. See Develop a capability for the authoring workflow.

Point Phase Position
discuss:pre Discuss Before the discuss step executes
discuss:post Discuss After the discuss step completes
plan:pre Plan Before the plan step executes
plan:post Plan After the plan step completes
execute:pre Execute Before the execute phase begins
execute:wave:pre Execute Before each execution wave
execute:wave:post Execute After each execution wave
execute:post Execute After the execute phase completes
verify:pre Verify Before the verify step executes
verify:post Verify After the verify step completes
ship:pre Ship Before the ship step executes
ship:post Ship After the ship step completes

Runtime body (role: "runtime")

Runtime capabilities describe how GSD projects its artefacts onto one host CLI. The body is a closed 8-axis (plus 4 install-surface) vocabulary; no feature-only fields (skills, agents, steps, contributions, gates, hooks) are permitted. Full semantic specifications, the closed enum values for each axis, and the 16-runtime worked examples are in ADR-1016.

Axis Field Type summary
Config home runtime.configHome Structured object with kind (dot-home | dot-home-nested | xdg | generic-agents-root), name, optional parent, env[], probe[], probeExists, skillsHome. probeExists is an optional sub-path applied to probe candidates: for generic-agents-root it is a hard filter (a candidate qualifies only if <candidate>/<probeExists> exists); for dot-home-nested it is a preference that makes probing pick the candidate GSD owns (e.g. gsd-core/VERSION) over a bare-existing sibling before falling back — see ADR-1016 and #213/#217.
Local config dir runtime.localConfigDir Required dot-prefixed string. The runtime's local content-rewrite directory — the ./ target GSD stamps into rewritten artefact bodies (e.g. ./.claude/ → ./<localConfigDir>/) and the local install dir basename. Backs getDirName() (registry-derived, #1679). Usually .<runtime> (the runtime's home dot-dir), but three runtimes diverge because they read GSD's content from a non-home directory: copilot → .github (GitHub Copilot reads custom instructions from .github/copilot-instructions.md / .github/instructions/; see convertClaudeToCopilotContent rewrites in src/runtime-artifact-conversion.cts), antigravity → .agents (local agent/workflow dir; see the antigravity rewrites in src/runtime-artifact-conversion.cts), kimi → .kimi-code. Distinct from configHome.name (the global install home, which for these three is .copilot / antigravity / agents). Byte-parity-proven against the prior hand-maintained mapping by the golden-install-parity harness.
Config format runtime.configFormat Closed enum: settings-json | toml | markdown | markdown-dir | none.
Artefact layout runtime.artifactLayout Object with global and local arrays of ArtifactKind (kind, destSubpath, prefix, nesting, recursive, stage).
Command style runtime.commandStyle Closed enum: slash-hyphen | shell-var.
Hooks surface runtime.hooksSurface Closed enum: settings-json | codex-hooks-json | cursor-hooks-json | copilot-inline | cline-rules | kimi-hooks-toml | none.
Sandbox tier runtime.sandboxTier Closed enum: none | codex-agent-sandbox.
Support tier runtime.supportTier Integer: 1 (fully tested first-party) | 2 (shipped, lower coverage).
Install surface runtime.installSurface Closed enum: settings-json | codex-toml | copilot-instructions | cline-rules | cursor-hooks-json | profile-marker-only.
Shared settings runtime.writesSharedSettings boolean. Whether the runtime writes a shared settings.json.
Permission writer runtime.permissionWriter null | "opencode" | "kilo" | "antigravity". The finish-time permissions-sidecar writer.
Extended hook events runtime.extendedHookEvents string[] over a closed vocabulary: SubagentStop, Stop, PreCompact, FileChanged, BeforeAgent, AfterAgent, BeforeModel, SubagentStart.

hostBehaviors

runtime.hostBehaviors is a closed vocabulary of per-host behavior switches consumed directly by installer and runtime-adaptation code. A key outside the vocabulary is ignored, with a non-fatal warning naming the capability and the key; it is never a validation error, so a manifest authored against a newer GSD degrades visibly instead of failing the build of a repo that merely reads it.

Adding a key is a reviewed first-party change, which is ADR-1016's intended friction rather than an obstacle: the runtime descriptor expresses every per-host difference as a value over a closed vocabulary, and a host needing a new shape gets a named primitive rather than an open escape hatch.

History. hostBehaviors went unvalidated until #2801, and this page previously described it as a deliberate open seam sanctioned by ADR-1016. That attribution was wrong — ADR-1016 does not mention hostBehaviors at all. See the ADR-1016 amendment.

The vocabulary holds 59 keys; 39 of them are set by exactly one capability. This table is not exhaustive — it lists the keys with the widest reuse so a reader can pattern-match new ones against the same shape:

Key Capabilities declaring it
reapplyCommand 9
skipSharedHooksInstall 8
frontmatterDialect 5
hyphenNameAgentBody 3
legacyCommandsGsdInstallMigration 3
legacyCommandsGsdUninstall 3
nativePlugin 3
skipUpdateBannerCommand 3
verificationStyle 3

reviewerCli has been removed. It was a boolean that marked a runtime capability as also being a reviewer lane. ADR-2782 replaced it with the reviewer body; it survived one release (1.9.0 → 1.10.0) as a derived legacy alias and was deleted in Phase 7 (#2801). No shipped capability declares it.

If your out-of-tree manifest still sets it: nothing crashes and nothing else about your capability changes — it simply contributes no reviewer lane, and the registry reports a non-fatal warning naming the capability. The warning reaches you at build time on stderr, and at install time through the overlay loader's diagnostics. To restore the lane, declare a reviewer body; Ship a reviewer lane in your capability is the migration path, and the field reference is below.

See ADR-1016 (the runtime descriptor is a closed vocabulary; its 2026-08-09 amendment closes hostBehaviors too) and ADR-2782 (introduces the reviewer body, and D9 retires the reviewerCli alias).

For a minimal role: "runtime" example, see ADR-1016 §Decision 8.


Reviewer body (role: "reviewer", or on any role)

ADR-2782 introduces the reviewer lane: one external CLI or model endpoint that /gsd-review hands a plan to for independent review.

To declare one, follow Ship a reviewer lane in your capability. This section is the field reference behind that guide.

The reviewer body is optional and absent-safe at every layer. A capability with no reviewer body is simply not a lane — that is never a validation error. This is a normative forward/backward-compatibility invariant, not a nicety: a plugin, a runtime, or a future GSD version may omit reviewer entirely with no consequence.

The shape is hybrid:

  • A reviewer body is admissible on role: "runtime", so an existing runtime capability — codex, antigravity — keeps one manifest that is both an installable runtime and a reviewer lane.
  • A third role, role: "reviewer", exists for lane-only CLIs that GSD never installs into. There are currently 5: coderabbit, gemini, llama-cpp, lm-studio, ollama.

Current role counts across capabilities/: feature 20, runtime 19, reviewer 5.

All 12 shipped lane declarations carry all 13 fields below.

Field Type Notes
slug string Lane identity; grammar ^[a-z0-9][a-z0-9_-]*$. May use _ (lm_studio, llama_cpp) even where the capability folder id is kebab-case (lm-studio).
flags string[] User-facing CLI flags that select this lane. A lane may declare more than one — antigravity declares --antigravity and --agy. 12 lanes declare 13 flags in total.
transport closed enum spawn | openai-http.
probe object Availability check. probe.kind is a closed enum: command-exists | command-capability | http-reachable. command-capability additionally takes binary, needle, and a required timeoutMs — it exists because a bare binary name can be ambiguous (kimi is claimed by both the Kimi Code CLI and the legacy Python kimi-cli), and the timeout bound is mandatory because an unbounded --help | grep probe is this repo's named Unbounded Subprocesses defect.
invoke object Shape is selected by transport. For spawn: binary, args[], promptChannel (stdin | argv | argv-file-ref | none), outputChannel (stdout | file-arg), outputArg (required when outputChannel is file-arg), modelArg (string or null), effortChannel (none | argv | env), env (optional; an object of environment name/value pairs, string values only, merged over the inherited environment for that one spawn — keys must match the portable environment-name grammar [A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*, which is a portability policy rather than an OS limit, and __proto__ is refused because it would be dropped before reaching the child). For openai-http: hostConfigKey, defaultHost, path, modelDiscovery (none | first-from-models-endpoint), fallbackModel, effortChannel. args supports the {{model}}, {{prompt}}, {{effort}}, and {{output}} placeholders. Every field in this object is disclosed at install and bound to the consent signature — env and defaultHost by name in the consent prompt, the rest through a residual, so any change to a declared invoke field forces re-consent. env additionally refuses execution-primitive names — PATH, NODE_OPTIONS, LD_PRELOAD, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES, BASH_ENV, PYTHONPATH, PERL5OPT, RUBYOPT, GIT_SSH_COMMAND, JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS and siblings, matched case-insensitively (Windows environment lookup is). A lane needing a specific executable declares an absolute binary rather than reshaping the child's PATH. That denylist is defence in depth and not the boundary: it cannot be complete against an arbitrary child, and disclosure runs before validation, so install-time consent — which shows every declared pair and warns on execution-primitive names — is what actually gates them.
timeoutFloorMs number Measured per-lane floor. Lane divergence here is real and correct — the descriptor's job is to declare divergence in one place, not to promise uniformity.
emptyOutput closed enum stub-with-stderr | handler-owned.
reviewsSection string The REVIEWS.md heading this lane renders under. Must be unique across the merged roster.
evidenceClass closed enum source-grounded | diff-only (diff-only findings are down-weighted in consensus).
requiresBinaries string[] Extra binaries the lane needs beyond invoke.binary.
promptBudgetKey string or null Federated config key bounding prompt size.
modelConfigKey string or null Federated config key naming the model, e.g. review.models.kimi-code.
handler closed enum or null antigravity | openai-compatible | opencode | null.

handler is a closed enum of first-party handler names, not an open escape hatch. ADR-1016 explicitly rejected "arbitrary code in the descriptor"; hard shapes are absorbed by adding a named primitive that is reviewed first-party. The consequence, stated plainly: a third-party reviewer lane is strictly data-only. A plugin can ship a lane, but not a quirky lane that needs imperative code — a lane requiring behavior beyond the closed handler set is not expressible and must be proposed and merged first-party.

Uniqueness is enforced across the merged first-party ∪ overlay set: duplicate slug, duplicate flags entry, and duplicate reviewsSection are each build-time violations. Two lanes sharing a reviewsSection heading would silently merge their output in REVIEWS.md, producing apparent consensus that does not exist.

An unknown field inside a reviewer body is a non-fatal warning on stderr, never a build failure (ADR-2782 D4), so a manifest built against a newer GSD degrades visibly rather than crashing.

Example — lane-only role: "reviewer" capability

{
  "id": "coderabbit",
  "role": "reviewer",
  "version": "1.8.0",
  "title": "CodeRabbit",
  "description": "CodeRabbit CLI — cross-AI /gsd-review reviewer lane only; not a GSD install target (no runtime body, no artifacts).",
  "tier": "full",
  "requires": [],
  "engines": { "gsd": ">=1.8.0" },
  "reviewer": {
    "slug": "coderabbit",
    "flags": ["--coderabbit"],
    "transport": "spawn",
    "probe": { "kind": "command-exists", "binary": "coderabbit" },
    "invoke": {
      "binary": "coderabbit",
      "args": ["review", "--prompt-only"],
      "promptChannel": "none",
      "outputChannel": "stdout",
      "modelArg": null,
      "effortChannel": "none"
    },
    "timeoutFloorMs": 360000,
    "emptyOutput": "stub-with-stderr",
    "reviewsSection": "CodeRabbit",
    "evidenceClass": "diff-only",
    "requiresBinaries": [],
    "promptBudgetKey": null,
    "modelConfigKey": null,
    "handler": null
  }
}

Conformance invariants

The following invariants are enforced at build time by scripts/gen-capability-registry.cjs and at install time by the runtime-callable validateCapability() / validateCrossCapability() over the merged first-party ∪ overlay set.

  • version is required. The registry rejects any manifest without a semver version field.
  • id uniqueness. No two capabilities may share an id. An overlay whose id collides with a first-party id is rejected; first-party always wins.
  • Skill and agent stem uniqueness. Exactly one capability may own each skill or agent stem across the entire merged registry.
  • requires exist and are acyclic. Every id listed in requires must exist in the registry; the dependency graph must be acyclic.
  • requires is tier-monotone. A core capability may not require a standard or full capability. A standard capability may not require a full capability.
  • point values are from the closed set. Every point in steps, contributions, and gates must be one of the 12 identifiers above.
  • contribution.into is a published agent role. The into value must be an agent role declared by the host contract for that loop extension point.
  • Config key exclusivity. A federated config key must be owned by exactly one capability and absent from the central config-schema. Presence in both is a collision; a half-migrated key fails the build gate.
  • Artefact production uniqueness per point. No two capability steps may produces the same artefact name at the same loop extension point.
  • engines.gsd is a hard gate. A capability whose engines.gsd range does not satisfy the installed GSD version is blocked at install and skipped (with a warning) at load time.
  • Path confinement. Declared module paths may not use parent-directory traversal (../); modules are require()'d only from the capability's own install root.
  • Reserved namespace. Capability id values beginning with gsd-, gsd-core-, or anthropic- are reserved; third-party capabilities using these prefixes are rejected.

Example — complete role: "feature" capability

The following is the canonical UI design-contract capability from ADR-894. It illustrates all major body sections.

{
  "id": "ui",
  "role": "feature",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "title": "UI design contracts",
  "description": "UI-SPEC design contract and retrospective UI audit for frontend phases.",
  "tier": "standard",
  "requires": [],
  "engines": { "gsd": ">=1.6.0" },
  "runtimeCompat": { "supported": ["*"], "unsupported": [] },
  "skills": ["ui-phase", "ui-review"],
  "agents": ["gsd-ui-checker", "gsd-ui-auditor"],
  "hooks": [],
  "config": {
    "workflow.ui_phase": {
      "type": "boolean",
      "default": true,
      "description": "Enable the UI design-contract gate during planning."
    },
    "workflow.ui_review": {
      "type": "boolean",
      "default": true,
      "description": "Enable the retrospective UI audit."
    },
    "workflow.ui_safety_gate": {
      "type": "boolean",
      "default": true,
      "description": "Block execution on unmet UI-SPEC contracts."
    }
  },
  "steps": [
    {
      "point": "plan:pre",
      "ref": { "skill": "ui-phase" },
      "produces": ["UI-SPEC.md"],
      "consumes": ["CONTEXT.md"],
      "when": "workflow.ui_phase",
      "onError": "skip"
    },
    {
      "point": "verify:post",
      "ref": { "skill": "ui-review" },
      "produces": ["UI-REVIEW.md"],
      "consumes": ["UI-SPEC.md"],
      "when": "workflow.ui_review",
      "onError": "skip"
    }
  ],
  "contributions": [],
  "gates": [
    {
      "point": "execute:wave:post",
      "check": { "query": "ui.safety-gate" },
      "when": "workflow.ui_safety_gate",
      "blocking": true,
      "onError": "halt"
    }
  ]
}

Notes on this example:

  • when on each hook references its own config key; whether the phase is actually a frontend phase is decided inside ui-phase (self-gate).
  • The plan:pre step self-skips on non-frontend phases, producing no UI-SPEC.md; the execute:wave:post gate's ui.safety-gate query passes gracefully when no UI-SPEC.md exists.
  • A contribution follows this shape: { "point": "plan:pre", "into": "planner", "produces": [], "consumes": [], "fragment": { "path": "loop/threat-model.md" }, "when": "workflow.security_enforcement" } (produces and consumes are required arrays — use [] when empty).