| name | knotch-gate |
| description | Record a gate decision with long-form rationale on the active unit. The canonical Knotch workflow ships gates G0..G4 (Scope / Clarify / Plan / Review / Drift) with an 8-char `min_rationale_chars` floor — too-short text rejects as `RationaleTooShort`. Adopter-forked workflows may expose different gate vocabularies. |
| argument-hint | <gate-id> <decision> <rationale> |
| allowed-tools | Bash(knotch gate *) Bash(knotch current) |
knotch-gate
Record a gate event — your judgment about whether the unit meets
the checkpoint criteria.
Decisions
approved — passes the gate. Most common.rejected — fails the gate. Follow-up work required.needs_revision — partial; specific changes requested.deferred — postponed.
Syntax
knotch gate <gate-id> <decision> <rationale>
Examples:
knotch gate g0-scope approved "scope fits a tiny unit — single file, no UX"
knotch gate g2-plan rejected "violates constitution §IV — plan imports tokio::fs"
knotch gate g3-review approved "LLM review pass clean; no blockers"
What fires
EventBody::GateRecorded { gate, decision, rationale }.
What to check first
knotch current — confirm the active unit.- Rationale must meet
W::min_rationale_chars() — the canonical
Knotch workflow uses the 8-char default.
- Gate id must match a variant of the active workflow's
W::Gate
enum. Canonical Knotch gates: g0-scope, g1-clarify,
g2-plan, g3-review, g4-drift.
- Earlier gates in the ladder must already be recorded. Order:
G0 → G1 → G2 → G3 → G4. The kernel enforces this at append
time via KnotchGate::prerequisites — out-of-order proposals
fail with PreconditionError::GateOutOfOrder.
