tools-archfit

name

tools-archfit

description

Gather deterministic architecture-fitness evidence with archfit: full checks, scorecards, deltas, SARIF/JSON findings, tool coverage, and agent_tasks. Use when a repo has .archfit.yaml or the user wants architect to combine its review with archfit. Produces hard facts for architecture-review to calibrate, not a replacement for independent design judgment. NOT for running archfit LLM review as source-of-truth, changing archfit config, baselining findings, or applying fixes.

archfit deterministic evidence

Use archfit as a deterministic measurement and gate engine. It supplies whole-repo facts; the architect still judges intent, domain volatility, runtime/deploy context, false positives, and missing risks.

When to use

Use when a target repo contains .archfit.yaml or archfit.yaml, when archfit is available on PATH, or when the user asks to combine architect review with archfit output. Use it during architecture-review before final triage/scoring so hard facts can reduce sampling bias.

Do not use this skill for:

• archfit analyze --ai-summary or archfit explain <fingerprint> --ai-summary AI narration as primary evidence;
• archfit config init, config update --apply, baseline, config enrich (labels/owner/volatility/subdomain), config init --ai-classify, config enrich ... --apply, or config writes unless the user explicitly asks for config work;
• applying fixes from agent_tasks;
• replacing the architect's independent evidence gathering and Balanced Coupling judgment.

Skill navigation

• Missing or absent config: return to architecture-review; record archfit as missing or skipped. Optional archfit absence is a coverage gap, not a blocker.
• Current skill: run deterministic archfit commands, summarize facts, and build a calibration matrix.
• Next skill: return to architecture-review for independent verification, scoring, and report writing; use methodology-architecture-fitness for checks that should become enforced gates.

Read-only discipline

Prefer existing config only. Write command outputs to a temp directory outside the target repo. Do not create baselines, labels, generated reports, or config patches inside the repo without explicit user approval.

If archfit or a child tool writes caches or indexes under the target repo, record that path as generated tool state. If the output path is inside the scanned root, warn that reports can contaminate measurements and move future outputs outside the repo or exclude them.

Deterministic command set

Use the local binary if present; otherwise use archfit from PATH.

ARCHFIT=archfit
if [ -x ./archfit ]; then ARCHFIT=./archfit; fi
if [ -x ./.bin/archfit ]; then ARCHFIT=./.bin/archfit; fi

Run only commands that fit the repo and time budget. analyze is report-only: it exits 0 when analysis completes even when findings exist; read verdict and findings from its output. check enforces configured gates: 0 pass, 1 violation, 2 warning or strict-tool failure, and 3 config/runtime error. Treat check exits 1 and 2 as evidence, not command failures. Invalid JSON or exit 3 from either command is a tool failure.

# Tool/config health.
$ARCHFIT doctor

# Full deterministic facts as JSON: findings, metrics, classified_edges,
# agent_tasks, and the coupling_balance score.
$ARCHFIT analyze --config .archfit.yaml --json

# Same report rendered as the coupling_balance scorecard.
$ARCHFIT analyze --config .archfit.yaml --format scorecard

# Human-readable deterministic audit (text is the default format).
$ARCHFIT analyze --config .archfit.yaml

# Report-only delta facts, only when a meaningful base ref is known.
$ARCHFIT analyze --config .archfit.yaml --base <base-ref> --json

# Enforce current configured gates.
$ARCHFIT check --config .archfit.yaml --json

# Enforce only the delta against a meaningful base ref.
$ARCHFIT check --config .archfit.yaml --base <base-ref> --json

# Optional CI annotation artifact (SARIF to stdout).
$ARCHFIT check --config .archfit.yaml --sarif

Plain archfit explain <fingerprint> is deterministic finding detail and may be used as evidence. Do not run archfit analyze --ai-summary or archfit explain <fingerprint> --ai-summary unless the user specifically wants Archfit's AI narrative. If you do, label it advisory_ai, capture parse/runtime failures, and never cite it as deterministic evidence.

Extract these facts

From the JSON, scorecard, or text output, extract and summarize:

• tool_coverage and coverage_gaps: missing, failed, skipped, and stale tools; confidence impact.
• summary, the single coupling_balance dimension (score.overall/ overall_band, confidence, evidence refs), and per-metric results in metrics[]. archfit synthesizes only coupling_balance; derive the other six architect dimensions from findings, metrics, and your own evidence.
• findings: IDs, severity, status (new, baseline, fixed, waived, expired_waiver), rule_id, files, modules, and kind (gate or advisory).
• agent_tasks: machine-readable repair tasks (finding_id, rule_id, goal, constraints, files, validation); emitted for active gate findings only.
• dependency metrics: cycle and blast_radius where present in metrics[]. archfit emits no hub or instability metric — get those from codegraph.
• coupling facts: archfit scores each classified cross-boundary edge with the book equation (balance = max(|strength - distance|, 10 - volatility) + 1, 1–10, scorer bc_score.v3). Each bc/imbalanced_coupling finding carries its BC fields in matched_by: score_value, score_band, cheapest_move, distance_basis, strength, distance, volatility. The classified_edges summary holds mean_balance, scored, abstained, by_strength/by_distance/by_volatility, and llm_approved. Strength includes symmetric (clone-derived, ordinal 9); volatility may be undeclared/unknown (scored worst-case); abstained edges (unknown strength or distance) are excluded from .

Absence of findings is evidence only when the relevant tool coverage is present and current. A green score on missing/thin evidence is a calibration concern, not proof of architectural health.

Architect calibration matrix

Return this matrix to architecture-review whenever archfit output was used:

archfit_calibration:
  source_commands: []
  artifacts: []
  confirmed: []
  severity_adjusted: []
  false_positive_or_noise: []
  missed_by_archfit: []
  config_changes: []
  new_fitness_checks: []
  labels_to_confirm: []
  confidence_impact: none # none | low | medium | high

Classify with independent evidence:

• confirmed: architect verified the same issue in code, graph, runtime, deploy, or CI evidence.
• severity_adjusted: archfit fact is real, but composition-root role, ownership/deploy distance, lazy-import policy, generated code, or low domain volatility changes severity.
• false_positive_or_noise: cache/generated artifact, output contamination, tool limitation, or configured role makes the finding not architecture risk.
• missed_by_archfit: meaning-level risk not in deterministic facts, such as functional coupling without import edges, duplicated business rules, prompt/tool contract drift, deploy selector drift, slow/flaky architecture-adjacent tests, or supply-chain/runtime topology risk.
• config_changes: .archfit.yaml improvements that would make deterministic facts more honest, especially module ownership, deploy units, public/private boundaries, subdomain, volatility, and stronger gates.
• new_fitness_checks: executable checks to add after design/repair.
• labels_to_confirm: architect-inferred subdomain/volatility/strength labels a human should approve before deterministic gating uses them. Strength labels live in .archfit-labels.yaml (from/to/strength/status/provenance/ confidence, plus rationale/evidence_hash); only status: approved entries override the SCIP hint, and the labelable strengths are contract/model/functional/symmetric/intrusive. Flag heavy provenance: llm labeling — archfit drops coupling_balance confidence a band when ≥20% of scored edges rest on non-high-confidence LLM labels.

Balanced Coupling handling

archfit now scores edges with the book's own equation (scorer bc_score.v3, ordinals matching the book: contract 1, model 3, functional 8, symmetric 9, intrusive 10), so its coupling_balance is book-aligned in math. It still cannot own the business truth behind the inputs. For every important coupling claim, apply methodology-balanced-coupling and confirm what archfit could only declare or infer:

• strength: archfit's SCIP-based strength tops out at functional (contract and intrusive are deterministic; model-vs-functional is heuristic; symmetric comes only from clone detection). Confirm the model/functional/contract distinction by reading the crossing types; promote it with an approved .archfit-labels.yaml entry, not a prose guess.
• distance: archfit reports a distance_basis (code_structure / ownership / deploy_unit). runtime_async is report-only and never moves distance — fold runtime/deploy distance in yourself.
• volatility: archfit derives it from config volatility:/subdomain: and an inferred-volatility cascade — never from churn or path/name guessing, and it cannot see provider-switch (implementation) volatility in generic/supporting code. Confirm declarations against the business domain; undeclared/unknown volatility scores worst-case and is a config gap to flag, not a finding.
• balancing move: archfit suggests a cheapest_move (reduce_strength / reduce_distance / lower_volatility / declare_volatility); treat it as a hypothesis and confirm it against the relationship record.

Do not pass through archfit's coupling_balance score as the architect score. Use the per-edge score_value/score_band and the classified_edges distribution as evidence, then score from relationship records and coverage.

Apply coverage-gap calibration consistently so the magnitude is reproducible, not just the direction:

• When edge classification is absent (scip absent / "no classified cross-boundary edges"), set coupling_balance confidence low and cap the band at mixed (≤ 60, default ~50) unless you classify the edges yourself with codegraph, go list, or dependency-cruiser.
• When classified_edges.scored is a low fraction of total (many abstained unknown-strength/distance edges), mean_balance rests on thin coverage — treat it like absent classification: low confidence, cap at mixed.
• When GitNexus covered only part of the changed files, apply the same cap to change_locality.
• A clean coupling_balance dimension with confidence: medium and an n/a metric is a coverage gap, not a strong result.

Output

Return a concise evidence summary:

• commands run and artifacts produced;
• exit statuses interpreted as findings/warnings/failures;
• tool coverage and confidence impact;
• top deterministic findings and agent tasks by severity/risk;
• scorecard/delta highlights;
• calibration matrix;
• smallest follow-up checks needed to verify hypotheses.

Hard rules

• Deterministic archfit facts can seed review; they do not replace independent verification or user/domain context.
• No high-quality architecture claim from missing or unclassified evidence.
• No source or config writes without explicit approval.
• No treating archfit analyze --ai-summary / archfit explain <fingerprint> --ai-summary narration as source-of-truth; plain explain remains deterministic finding detail.
• No counting an archfit pass as proof of correctness, security, performance, or all architecture quality; it only says configured checks and measured metrics passed under the observed coverage.