docs(W4): apply fred's six contract decisions from PR #1350 comment 23693

A - docs/README.md:149-190 rewritten. It prescribed a competing front-matter schema
    (title/type/audience/status/source_of_truth) adopted by 4 of 128 live documents. Two
    documented conventions in one repo is the defect this pass removes, so the README now
    documents the contract and the 4 files convert in the same commit: `type` dropped
    (kind replaces it), `title`/`audience`/`source_of_truth` kept.
B - source-of-truth leaves the kind enum, which is now 6 values, and returns as an orthogonal
    boolean. kind was carrying two independent facts. docs/requirements/native-kanban-sot.md
    is stamped `kind: spec` + `source_of_truth: true`, which is what it always was.
C - status gains `completed`. Applied to the two executed plans, on artifact evidence rather
    than on their own say-so: --purpose push|merge ships in ci-queue-wait.sh, and every section
    the README plan specifies exists in docs/README.md today.
D - kind follows content, never filename. docs/native-kanban-sot/TASKS.md is `kind: spec`
    because its body says "a build plan, not a task tracker". The name stays wrong; that is a
    rename and it is out of scope here.
E - the contract covers .md only, written into the README as a decision with vision's
    YAML.parse measurement as the reason, so the omission does not read as an oversight.
F - channel-protocol.md guide -> spec. Applied, with a correction the reviewer should see: the
    ruling cites "7 normative MUSTs" and there are ZERO uppercase RFC2119 terms in that file.
    Control: the identical grep returns 25 lines in docs/requirements/native-kanban-sot.md. The
    citation half of the finding does hold and is larger than stated. Consequence recorded in
    the worklist: the file's own banner now contradicts its header.

Verified: 128 live .md under docs/ (127 baseline + this PR's worklist), 107 stamped, 0 invalid
kinds, 17 operator-held + 3 supersede-stamp deferrals + 1 generated = 21 unstamped. 107+21=128.
Control: the verifier reports valid=False when a kind is corrupted to `nonsense`, so the
0-invalid result is a real result. prettier --check clean across docs/.
This commit is contained in:
2026-08-20 19:58:17 -05:00
parent f6fbeaf57a
commit 12d5258e20
11 changed files with 115 additions and 23 deletions
+38 -8
View File
@@ -146,21 +146,51 @@ Every canonical page should:
7. Include an owner or maintenance responsibility for operationally sensitive content.
8. Link to the relevant book index and related canonical pages.
Recommended front matter for canonical pages:
Required front matter for every canonical page:
```yaml
---
title: Human-readable page title
type: guide
audience: developer
status: current
source_of_truth: false
kind: tracking | projection | spec | guide | record | superseded
status: active # or: completed | superseded-by: <path>
source_of_truth: false # optional, defaults false
audience: developer # optional: user | admin | developer | all
title: Human-readable page title # optional
---
```
Allowed `type` values include `guide`, `concept`, `reference`, `decision`, `rfc`, and `runbook`. Allowed `audience` values are `user`, `admin`, `developer`, and `all`. Allowed `status` values are `current`, `draft`, `deprecated`, and `historical`.
`kind` says what the document **is**. One value, required, and it follows the document's content,
never its filename: a file named `TASKS.md` whose body says "this is a build plan, not a task
tracker" is a `spec`.
Indexes may omit front matter when their purpose is self-evident. A page with normative authority must explicitly identify the authority it owns and the boundaries of that authority.
| kind | rule |
| ---------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| tracking | Live state, single-writer. Never a spec |
| projection | Generated. Never hand-edited. MUST have a drift test |
| spec | How to build one goal or workstream |
| guide | Explains use. Decides nothing |
| record | What happened. Never authoritative, never updated after the fact |
| superseded | Kept for history, and NAMES its replacement |
`source_of_truth` is a separate boolean because authority is **orthogonal to kind**. A document can
be a `spec` and still be the thing everything else answers to;
`docs/requirements/native-kanban-sot.md` is exactly that. Folding authority into `kind` forced one
field to carry two independent facts, which is why an earlier draft of this contract could not
classify that file at all.
`status` has three values. `active` means in force. `completed` means the work the document
describes landed and the document is now finished rather than stale; executed implementation plans
take this. `superseded-by: <path>` replaces `status` entirely and names the replacement.
**This contract covers `.md` files only.** It is not an omission: a YAML document cannot carry YAML
front matter. The repository's own `[email protected]` throws `Source contains multiple documents` on a
front-mattered `.yaml`, and `parseNorthStar` (`packages/mosaic/src/commands/fleet.ts:242`) is a live
consumer that would break. `.yaml` sources declare their own kind inside the document or not at all.
A `parent` field is planned and is deliberately not yet required; it lands once the docs flatten
settles the paths it would point at.
Indexes may omit front matter when their purpose is self-evident. A page with normative authority
must explicitly identify the authority it owns and the boundaries of that authority.
## Obsidian and link conventions