Files
khosra/docs/toolchain.md
T
bdeshi 9359478789 add a Makefile and build instructions
So the thing can be built and run without reading the harness. Eight targets,
each one go command or verify.sh; make help lists them. README gains the four
lines someone actually needs, and says a site root is a directory the binary is
pointed at rather than something in this repo.

make is recorded in toolchain.md as a convenience: the gate never invokes it, so
a machine without make loses nothing but typing.
2026-08-01 02:23:34 +06:00

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2.9 KiB
Markdown

# Toolchain and external contracts
What this harness was built against, and which of those are contracts it depends on rather than
incidentals. Recorded because a failure long after the fact is otherwise indistinguishable from a bug in
the harness itself. Update the version line when you deliberately move; leave the rest alone.
**Verified working:** 2026-07-28
| Thing | Version then | Harness depends on |
|---|---|---|
| Go | 1.26.1 (darwin/arm64) | `go list -f`, `go vet`, `go build`, `go test -race`, `gofmt -l`. All stable since 1.11 |
| git | 2.53.0 | `status --porcelain -uall`, `rev-list <sha>..HEAD -- '*.go'`, `rev-parse --verify`, `core.hooksPath` (2.9+) |
| Claude Code | 2.1.119 | the four formats below |
| bash | macOS default (3.2-era) + BSD userland | `verify.sh` avoids bashisms and GNU-only flags; `grep -L`, `wc -l`, `xargs`, `awk` are POSIX use |
## The four agent-tooling contracts
These are the ones most likely to move, and the ones whose breakage looks like a harness bug:
1. **`CLAUDE.md` is loaded automatically** from the repo root on every request. If that stops being true,
nothing enforces the constitution and the agent will behave like a stock assistant.
2. **`.claude/skills/<name>/SKILL.md`** — a Markdown file in a directory named for the skill, which fires
on request content matching its description. The feature loop depends on firing *without* being
invoked; if skills come to need explicit invocation, the loop silently stops applying.
3. **`.claude/commands/<name>.md`** — Markdown with a YAML frontmatter `description:`, invoked as
`/<name>`, `$ARGUMENTS` substituted. Used by `/verify`, `/audit`, `/leaf`, `/refresh-docs`, `/adr`,
`/invariants`.
4. **`.claude/settings.json`** — a `permissions` object with `allow` / `ask` / `deny` arrays of
`Tool(pattern)` strings. Only a convenience: if the schema changes, the harness still works, you just
get more prompts.
## Not depended on
No CI service, no container registry, no language server, no linter binary, no package manager beyond
`go mod`. The `Makefile` is a convenience wrapper only: every target is one `go` or `verify.sh` command,
and the gate never invokes `make`, so a machine without it loses nothing but typing.
`verify.sh` runs offline with nothing but Go and git on `PATH`, which is deliberate — the gate must work
on a machine you have not configured for two years.
`VERIFY_DOCKER=1` adds a container build step and needs `docker`; it is opt-in and off by default.
## If something breaks after a long absence
Check in this order, cheapest first: `go version` and `git --version` against the table above; then
whether `verify.sh` fails in the `documentation` block (a harness-internal problem) or the `go` block (a
toolchain or code problem); then whether the agent is still reading `CLAUDE.md` at all — ask it to quote
a hard rule, and if it cannot, the problem is contract 1 and nothing downstream will behave.