validate

name	validate
description	Validate one or more PM files against quality and frontmatter standards
argument-hint	<file-path> [file-path ...]
model	opus
allowed-tools	Read

/pm:validate

Arguments: $ARGUMENTS Expected format: one or more file paths to validate (e.g., acme/tasks/onboarding/build-wizard.md)

Setup

Parse $ARGUMENTS as a list of file paths. If no arguments are given, stop: "Usage: /pm:validate [file-path ...]"

For each rule, check for a project override first:

• If .claude/overrides/rules/task-quality.md exists, Read it; otherwise Read ~/.claude/pm/rules/task-quality.md.
• If .claude/overrides/rules/frontmatter.md exists, Read it; otherwise Read ~/.claude/pm/rules/frontmatter.md.
• If .claude/overrides/rules/interview-quality.md exists, Read it; otherwise Read ~/.claude/pm/rules/interview-quality.md.

Follow override versions where they exist; fall back to the global defaults from ~/.claude/pm/rules/.

Validate each file

For each file path provided:

1. Read the file.
2. Determine its type from the type field in frontmatter (task, ticket, spec, interview).
3. Run all applicable quality gates listed below.

Quality gates (interview files)

Apply the standards from the interview-quality rule loaded in setup (override if present, default otherwise). Summary of gates:

• Goal set: The goal frontmatter field must be non-empty and not placeholder text.
• Customer segment set: The customer_segment field must be non-empty and not placeholder text.
• Minimum questions: At least 5 core questions must appear in the ## Core questions section.
• Intention on every question: Every question block must include an **Intention:** field.
• No anti-patterns: Flag questions matching Mom Test anti-patterns (future hypotheticals, leading questions, pitching). These are warnings, not hard failures.
• No placeholder text: No field or section may contain "TBD", "TODO", or "placeholder" (case-insensitive).

Interview validation failures are reported as warnings. They do not block sync (interviews are never synced).

Quality gates (tasks and tickets)

• Verb title: Title must start with a verb (e.g., "Add", "Fix", "Build", "Update"). Reject titles that start with a noun or adjective.
• Non-empty description: The ## Description section must exist and contain real content. Placeholder text ("TBD", "TODO", "placeholder") fails this gate.
• Acceptance criteria count: Must have at least 2 items in ## Acceptance criteria. Unchecked (- [ ]) or checked (- [x]) both count.
• Size set: The size field in frontmatter must be one of: XS, S, M, L. Empty or missing fails.
• No placeholder text: No field or section body may contain "TBD", "TODO", or "placeholder" (case-insensitive).

Additional gate (tasks only)

• spec_section set: The spec_section field must be present and non-empty. This is the traceability link to the spec.

Shared gate (tasks and tickets)

• Priority value: If the priority field is present and non-empty, it must be one of: high, medium, low. Any other value (e.g., "P1", "critical", "1") fails this gate.

Frontmatter completeness

• All required fields for the file type must be present (per the frontmatter rule loaded in setup).
• For task and ticket files only: sync_url and sync_id must be blank (empty value, not missing key). For backward compatibility, also accept github_url and github_id as equivalent field names if sync_url/sync_id are not present. Interview and spec files do not have these fields.
• Dates must be in ISO 8601 format: YYYY-MM-DD.

Output

After checking all files, return a structured result.

If all files pass:

Validation passed: [N] file(s) checked, all OK.

If any file fails, list each failure clearly:

Validation failed:

acme/tasks/onboarding/build-wizard.md
  - Title does not start with a verb: "Onboarding wizard setup"
  - Missing acceptance criteria (found 1, need at least 2)

acme/tickets/export-csv.md
  - Description contains placeholder text: "TBD"
  - Size is not set

[N] file(s) checked. [M] passed, [K] failed.

Stop after reporting. Do not attempt to fix files automatically unless the calling skill explicitly asks you to fix them.