critique

name	critique
description	Critique an existing livespec specification or a pending proposed change, surfacing ambiguities, contradictions, and missing rules as findings the user can act on. Invoked by /livespec:critique, "critique the livespec spec", or "find issues in the spec".
allowed-tools	Bash, Read, Write

critique — Claude Code Driver binding

This file is the thin Claude Code binding for the critique operation, shipped by the livespec-driver-claude Driver plugin (plugin name livespec, so the surface stays /livespec:*). The complete harness-neutral driving prose is livespec CORE's artifact at <core-root>/prose/critique.md. FIRST resolve <core-root> (next section), THEN read that prose file in full, then execute it end-to-end, binding its harness-neutral vocabulary to this runtime as follows.

Resolving livespec core (<core-root>)

This Driver plugin ships ONLY the bindings plus the small resolver named below. The harness-neutral prose and the reference spec-side CLIs ship with livespec core — the livespec plugin from the thewoolleyman/livespec marketplace, which must be installed alongside this Driver. The plugin-root placeholder of THIS plugin resolves to the Driver's own root, which carries no prose/ and no core bin/ wrappers — NEVER use it for core paths.

The ordered algorithm is realized ONCE, by the Driver-owned lib/resolve_core_root.py in this plugin's own bundle. Do NOT restate it inline. Eight byte-identical inline copies are exactly how one defect — selecting an install record by POSITION instead of by projectPath — came to live in all eight bindings simultaneously, and made every spec-side operation from an affected project hard-stop before doing any work.

1. LIVESPEC_CORE_PLUGIN_ROOT, when set and non-empty (explicit operator override; covers nonstandard dev setups, e.g. driving a sibling checkout's core).
2. Else <project-root>/.claude-plugin/ when its prose/ carries the COMPLETE core operation-prose set — the governed project IS the livespec core repo itself (--plugin-dir . dev mode / dogfooding). A prose/ directory alone is NOT the test: every plugin in this family ships its own, so testing the directory matches any consumer and pre-empts step 3, which holds that consumer's correct answer. Between "is core" and "is not core" lies a third state: a checkout carrying CORE-EXCLUSIVE operation prose — names no non-core plugin has reason to own — yet not the complete set. That is a core checkout mid-rename or mid-fetch, and it is an ERROR naming the missing files, not a decline: falling through there would resolve it to its own installed cache and serve the OLD released prose while you edit its replacement. Which names are core-exclusive is the resolver's to define; the rule is that the error arms on evidence of core, not on the mere absence of completeness.
3. Else the livespec@livespec install record in ~/.claude/plugins/installed_plugins.json whose projectPath is the project root. That key holds an ARRAY of records, one per project that installed the plugin; taking the first resolves whichever project on this host installed core earliest, which bears no relation to this one.

Canonical Bash form (<project-root> defaults to the cwd):

LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT="$(python3 "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/lib/resolve_core_root.py" --project-root .)" || exit 1
for op in critique doctor help next propose-change prune-history revise seed; do
  [ -f "$LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT/prose/$op.md" ] && continue
  echo "resolved root is not livespec core: no prose/$op.md in $LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT" >&2
  exit 1
done
echo "$LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT"

The resolver writes its OWN diagnostic to stderr and exits non-zero. That diagnostic distinguishes core being genuinely absent from a registry that could not be READ, and from core being installed for OTHER projects but not this one — which is a provisioning defect, NOT a stale plugin. If resolution fails, STOP and surface the resolver's diagnostic verbatim. Do not improvise a path, and do not run an install or update command the diagnostic did not ask for.

Config-named CLI dispatch

Per livespec core's contract (its contracts.md), every spec-side operation is named in the governed project's .livespec.jsonc under spec_clis.critique as an argv-form array, pre-populated with core's reference default and individually overridable. To "run the critique CLI named in config":

1. Read <project-root>/.livespec.jsonc (JSONC — tolerate // comments). If the file, the spec_clis section, or the spec_clis.critique key is absent, use core's reference default argv: python3 <core-root>/scripts/bin/critique.py.
2. If the configured argv contains the literal plugin-root substitution token (the CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT placeholder, written as a $-brace expansion in config), expand it to <core-root> — core's schema defines that token as "the installed livespec plugin root", which is CORE's root, never this Driver's.
3. Append the operation's flags and invoke via the Bash tool.

With the default config this collapses to:

python3 "$LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT/scripts/bin/critique.py" --findings-json <path> [--author <id>] [--spec-target <path>] [--project-root <path>]

Runtime bindings

• "run the critique CLI named in config" / "invoke the critique CLI" — dispatch per the Config-named CLI dispatch section above; with the default config:

  python3 "$LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT/scripts/bin/critique.py" --findings-json <path> [--author <id>] [--spec-target <path>] [--project-root <path>]
  

• "run the template-resolution CLI" — via the Bash tool:

  python3 "$LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT/scripts/bin/resolve_template.py"
  

• "ask the user" / "confirm with the user" / "surface" / "narrate" — conversational turns in this session (the AskUserQuestion tool or plain narration, as appropriate).

• "read <file>" — the Read tool. "write <file>" — the Write tool.

• "the revise / propose-change operation" — the /livespec:revise, /livespec:propose-change skills in this Driver plugin.

• "the doctor prose (prose/doctor.md)" — read $LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT/prose/doctor.md and follow it (the LLM-driven post-step phase runs under this Driver plugin's doctor binding).

• "core's livespec/schemas/ package" — resolves at runtime to $LIVESPEC_CORE_ROOT/scripts/livespec/schemas/.