jochen
2349f4bb63
A review found the check too lenient: an issue cited as context beside a deferral passed it, and one insight excused every deferral in a record. The tracking issue is now named as tracking it, an insight covers only its section or what it quotes, and the phrases include "not decided here", "postponed" and "future work". ADR 0273's four undecided items get issue 357.
98 lines
7.6 KiB
Markdown
98 lines
7.6 KiB
Markdown
# Checks
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```
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python3 00-META/checks/records.py structure: links, citations, supersession, topics
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python3 00-META/checks/index.py every record's topic is in the reading order, and no list of records is stored
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python3 00-META/checks/index.py --print the records, by topic, in reading order (generated, never written)
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python3 00-META/checks/words.py the glossary's retired words are not used, and no word is defined twice
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python3 00-META/checks/words.py --list tools the words the catalogue's copy must list
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```
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Non-zero exit on any problem, so it can be a gate rather than a report.
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**Why this exists.** Until now nothing in this repository was verified by anything but reading,
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which is how a superseded decision stayed live in the constitution for days and in
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`01-to-be/README.md` alongside it. Both were found by a person looking. `how-we-build` §5 says
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*an unenforced rule is indistinguishable from a wrong one, and costs more, because people
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believe it* — this repository was carrying several.
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**Every check here failed on something real before it passed.** A check that has never failed is
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indistinguishable from one that cannot.
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| Check | Asserts | Found |
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|---|---|---|
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| `links` | every relative link resolves | — (run ad hoc during authoring; now permanent) |
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| `rests-on` | `decisions:` and `extends:` name records that exist and are **accepted** | the class behind both incidents |
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| `live-citation` | a governing document citing a **superseded** record names its replacement in the same paragraph | `01-to-be/README.md` citing ADR 0022 as live guidance |
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| `supersession` | if A says it was superseded by B, B says it supersedes A | ADR 0012 never declared that it superseded 0011 |
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| `numbering` | the number in the filename is the number in the heading | — |
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| `topics` | every record names a topic of the reading order in `02-DECISIONS/README.md` | — |
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| *(index.py)* | the reading order is written, every record's topic is one of it, and the README stores no list of records ([ADR 0248](../../02-DECISIONS/0248-the-decision-index-is-generated-when-it-is-read-and-never-stored.md)) | a stored list made every two open decisions conflict ([issue 297](../../04-ISSUES/297-two-open-decisions-always-conflict/00-report.md)); it failed on the README of `main` before the list was removed |
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| `status-vs-code` | a to-be document naming specific code is not still `designed` | **ten documents**, several with a *What was built* section, describing lab-proven code |
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## What is deliberately not checked
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- **`02-DECISIONS/` and `01-RESEARCH/` may cite superseded records freely.** A decision record
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discusses history; research records what was observed. Flagging those would produce noise on
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correct documents, and a check that cries wolf gets suppressed — which costs more than not
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having it.
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- **`03-DESIGN/00-as-is/` may rest on a superseded record.** It describes what runs, and what
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runs was built under whatever was decided at the time
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([ADR 0006](../../02-DECISIONS/0006-the-substrate-and-the-control-plane.md):
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*as-is describing a superseded decision is exactly what as-is is for*).
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- **Whether a citation's prose is still true.** Only whether the record it points at is live.
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A document can cite an accepted record and describe it wrongly, and nothing here notices.
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So "governing" means `00-META/` and `03-DESIGN/01-to-be/` — the documents that tell somebody
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what to do.
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## Adding a check
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State what incident it would have caught, and make it fail before you make it pass. A check
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whose failure has never been observed is a guess about its own correctness.
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## cycle.py
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The development cycle, checked ([ADR 0080](../../02-DECISIONS/0080-the-development-cycle-is-checked.md)):
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a to-be design names a decision, an in-progress/implemented design names its owning code, a
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located/fixed issue names its owner, a fixed/resolved issue says what fixed it, a graduated
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research overview says what it became, and no two issue records share a number (issue 155 — the
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number is how a record is cited, and `main` lags every open pull request, so two people reading it
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allocate the same one). And a core issue — one opened from 2026-10-07 whose `located-in` names a core
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repository — resolves only with `replay:` (an id in mesh-lab's replays register) or `replay-none:` saying
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why none is possible ([ADR 0237](../../02-DECISIONS/0237-a-change-is-judged-against-the-mesh-that-runs-before-it-merges-on-the-build-seat.md));
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it failed on a resolved core issue carrying neither before it passed. And an accepted record that puts work
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off — "until renamed", "left for later", "not decided here", "postponed", "future work", "deferred", "a later
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change" — names the issue that tracks it, as tracking it ("tracked by issue N", or "issue N tracks"), in that
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paragraph or list item, or in a dated progressive insight that speaks about it: one in the same section, or one
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that quotes it. An issue cited for another reason tracks nothing, and one insight does not excuse every deferral
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in a record. A rejected option is not work put off and is not held
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([issue 354](../../04-ISSUES/354-a-decided-rename-was-never-scheduled-and-the-operator-believed-it-live/00-report.md):
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ADR 0244 deferred the code renames with no issue, and two days later the operator believed them done). Held to
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it: a record dated from 2026-10-09, and an older one corrected under the rule. Measured from ADR 0244's date
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it found deferrals without an issue in ADR 0241, 0244 and 0270; held from 2026-10-09 it failed on 0270 and 0273
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(whose "not decided here" sits beside a citation of issue 340 that tracks none of it), and on 0244's four
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deferral places once its insight brought it under the rule — on three of them while the insight, in §6, named
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the issue without quoting them — before each named its issue (355, 357, 354). `python3 00-META/checks/cycle.py`
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## words.py
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One word per thing, checked ([ADR 0244](../../02-DECISIONS/0244-the-mesh-is-described-in-domains-and-one-word-names-one-thing.md)).
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It reads the glossary's *Not:* lines (the retired words, each with its scope) and *Identifier until
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renamed* lines, and fails on a retired word or a bare identifier in running prose — what is left once code,
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quotations, struck-through text, link targets, comments and frontmatter are taken out — in `00-META/`,
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`03-DESIGN/`, `AGENTS.md`, `README.md`, and research and issues dated from 2026-10-07. Decision records are
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never checked. It also fails when a glossary head word heads two entries or is also retired.
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[`words-allowed.md`](words-allowed.md) names a document that could not be reworded at once, with a date, or
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a graduated research effort kept as written. With `MESH_CATALOG_DIR` set it compares the catalogue's copy
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of the tools' retired words (`retired-words`) with the glossary.
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It failed on something real before it passed: 581 uses of retired words in 63 documents on its first run, besides the glossary itself and research 034 —
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"the host" for the node-engine in 30 designs, "control plane" in 10, the glossary's own entry for the tool runner —
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and two glossary contradictions (the "console", the deprecated broker's seat), fixed in the change that
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added it. A retired word's plural (`s` or `es` on its last word) is matched as the word: until 2026-10-07
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it was not, so "alerts", "rollouts" and "the hosts" (the node-engines) passed while their singulars
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failed; the plural failed on 15 uses in 10 documents before it passed. A verb that reads like a plural
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("a node hosts") is a finding too, and is reworded. Homonyms (*plan*, *gate*, *tier*, *ask*, *store*, *record*, *check*) are not checked by it: a
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word list cannot tell one sense from another, so they are reviewed.
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