doctrine-kit

The experience-packaging rung: the cross-kit delivery doctrine the other kits enforce piecemeal, stated once in a customer-deliverable rules file and carried into a consumer’s project by reference.

The deliverable — DOCTRINE.md — carries each rule as its statement, why it holds under coding-agent work, and a pointer to the kit mechanism that enforces it. It is referenced in place, never copy-installed: a consumer’s always-loaded agent file gains a one-line-per-rule digest and a markdown link to the vendored doctrine, and re-vendoring the kit is the doctrine upgrade. See SPEC.md for why that reference-not-copy boundary is the mechanism.

This file ships in the installer payload; what that payload withholds, and where this page’s SPEC.md links then resolve, is gate-sdk/SPEC.md §Consumer payload.

The installer — the gate binary’s --install-doctrine arm — inserts or replaces the reference block between fixed markers, idempotently. It does not carry the digest: each bullet is derived from the summary its rule states in a *Digest:* trailer, so the digest names every methodology rule by construction and a rule cannot land in the doctrine but miss the block every consumer installs. The gate — check-doctrine-registration — holds the block honest: it asserts the always-loaded file carries the markdown link and keeps its methodology-rule digest in per-rule lockstep with the doctrine (each rule digested or declared trimmed, no digest bullet orphaned), and that each rule carries its one well-formed per-rule trailer — *Stages:* routing on the craft register, *Digest:* on the methodology register — fail-closed when a scanned file or heading is missing.

The emitter — the --emit stage-rules <stage> arm on the gate binary GATE_SDK_NATIVE_BIN names — reads those trailers and prints the craft-rule pointers that bear on a stage, so a session entering it is reminded of the rules to follow before the matching action. It is derived, load-triggered data: context-kit’s session-context hook is its consumer. See SPEC.md.

The doctrine ships the rule statements only. Each kit’s SPEC owns its mechanism and knob rosters, cited from the doctrine and never restated — so no private rule content crosses the provenance seam.

Install

Vendor the kit beside gate-sdk (required), then:

Install the reference block — with your always-loaded agent file present, run this arm with the gate binary GATE_SDK_NATIVE_BIN names, where init places it. In PowerShell, spell the line ./scripts/checkwright-gates <arm> at the repository root, with .exe on native Windows:
```
gates="${GATE_SDK_NATIVE_BIN:-./scripts/checkwright-gates}"
"$gates" --install-doctrine
```
It writes (or updates) the ## Delivery doctrine block in CLAUDE.md, linking doctrine-kit/DOCTRINE.md. A harness-less consumer can paste the marker block by hand instead — the installer is only its generator. Point DOCTRINE_KIT_AGENT_FILE / DOCTRINE_KIT_DOCTRINE_FILE at your own paths if they differ from the defaults.
Register the gate — add to your gates.list:
```
check-doctrine-registration
```
The pre-commit hook runs the gates their # graph: manifests trigger, read at commit; --install-hooks on the gate binary GATE_SDK_NATIVE_BIN names places both hooks in a clone once, and a gate registered later is reached with no re-install.
Edit the digest — to drop a rule your project does not keep resident, declare the trim in place:  inside the digest section. The gate holds the digest in per-rule lockstep with the doctrine modulo declared trims, so a silent omission stays red; point DOCTRINE_KIT_DIGEST_SECTION at your heading if it is not ## Delivery doctrine. The declaration survives the next run: the installer reads your block before it rewrites it and carries each declared marker back into the trimmed rule’s position, so re-vendoring never restores a rule you removed. That is the only customization it preserves — see SPEC.md for the bound and the two findings it reports.

Test

Run this arm the same way:

gates="${GATE_SDK_NATIVE_BIN:-./scripts/checkwright-gates}"
"$gates" --run-gate-tests doctrine-kit/gate-tests doctrine-kit/checks

License

Licensed under Apache-2.0, with the text in LICENSE beside this file in an installed copy and at the repository root in the source tree.