| name | guarding-paths |
| description | Audits and fixes path duplication in a Socket repo. Applies the strict "1 path, 1 reference" rule: every build/test/runtime/config path is constructed exactly once; everywhere else references the constructed value. Default mode finds and fixes; `check` mode reports only; `install` mode drops the gate + hook + rule into a fresh repo. Use when path drift surfaces from `pnpm check`, when a new sibling package needs path conventions, or when bootstrapping a fresh Socket repo. |
guarding-paths
Mantra: 1 path, 1 reference. A path is constructed exactly once; everywhere else references the constructed value. Re-constructing the same path twice is the violation. Referencing the constructed value many times is fine.
Modes
| Invocation | Effect |
|---|
/guarding-paths | Full audit-and-fix on the current repo (default). |
/guarding-paths check | Read-only audit; report violations; no fixes. |
/guarding-paths fix <id> | Fix a single finding from a prior check run, by index. |
/guarding-paths install | Drop the gate + hook + rule + allowlist into a fresh repo. |
Three-level enforcement
The strategy lives in three artifacts that ship together:
- CLAUDE.md rule: the mantra and detection rules in plain language. Every fleet repo's CLAUDE.md carries
## 1 path, 1 reference. Synced from _shared/path-guard-rule.md.
- Hook:
.claude/hooks/fleet/path-guard/index.mts runs PreToolUse on Edit / Write of .mts / .cts files. Blocks new violations at edit time.
- Gate:
scripts/check-paths.mts runs in pnpm check (and CI). Whole-repo scan. Fails the build on any unsanctioned violation.
The hook and gate share their stage / build-root / mode / sibling-package vocabulary via .claude/hooks/fleet/path-guard/segments.mts: a single canonical source. Adding a new stage segment or fleet package means editing one file; the two consumers can never drift on what counts as a build-output path.
This skill is the audit-and-fix workflow that makes a repo conform initially and validates conformance over time.
Detection rules
The gate enforces six rules. The hook enforces a subset (A and B), since it sees only one diff at a time.
| Rule | What it catches | Where checked |
|---|
| A | Multi-stage path.join(...) constructed inline. Two or more "stage" segments (Final, Release, Stripped, Compressed, Optimized, Synced, wasm, downloaded), or one stage + build-root + mode. | .mts / .cts files outside a paths.mts. Hook + gate. |
| B | Cross-package traversal: path.join(*, '..', '<sibling-package>', 'build', ...) reaching into a sibling's output instead of importing via exports. | .mts / .cts files. Hook + gate. |
| C | Workflow YAML constructs the same path string in 2+ steps outside a "Compute paths" step. | .github/workflows/*.yml. Gate. |
| D | Comment encodes a fully-qualified multi-stage path string (e.g. # build/dev/darwin-arm64/out/Final/binary). | .github/workflows/*.yml. Gate. |
| F | Same path shape constructed in 2+ different files. | All scanned files. Gate. |
| G | Hand-built multi-stage path constructed 2+ times in the same Makefile / Dockerfile / shell stage. | Makefile, *.mk, *.Dockerfile, Dockerfile.*, *.sh. Gate. |
Comments may describe path structure with placeholders (<mode>/<arch> or ${BUILD_MODE}/${PLATFORM_ARCH}) but should not encode a complete literal path string. Violations in .mts, Makefiles, Dockerfiles, workflow YAML, and shell scripts are blocking; comments come second.
Mode: audit-and-fix (default)
| # | Phase | Outcome |
|---|
| 1 | Setup | Spawn worktree off origin/$BASE (default-branch fallback). |
| 2 | Audit | pnpm run check:paths --json > /tmp/paths-findings.json; pnpm run check:paths --explain for human-readable. |
| 3 | Fix loop | For each finding, apply the matching pattern from reference.md. Re-run the gate after each fix. Stop when pnpm run check:paths exits 0. |
| 4 | Verify | pnpm check + zizmor on any modified workflow. |
| 5 | Commit + push | Per-rule commits, atomic. Push directly to $BASE for repos that allow it; PR for socket-cli / socket-sdk-js / socket-registry. |
| 6 | Cleanup | git worktree remove ../<repo>-paths-audit. git worktree list should show only the primary afterward. |
Worktree setup uses the default-branch fallback from CLAUDE.md:
BASE=$(git symbolic-ref refs/remotes/origin/HEAD 2>/dev/null | sed 's@^refs/remotes/origin/@@')
if [ -z "$BASE" ] && git show-ref --verify --quiet refs/remotes/origin/main; then BASE=main; fi
if [ -z "$BASE" ] && git show-ref --verify --quiet refs/remotes/origin/master; then BASE=master; fi
BASE="${BASE:-main}"
git worktree add -b paths-audit ../<repo>-paths-audit "$BASE"
Mode: check (read-only)
pnpm run check:paths --explain
Prints findings without making edits. Exit 0 if clean, 1 if findings present. Useful for CI / pre-merge inspection.
Mode: install (new repo)
For Socket repos that don't yet have the gate:
- Copy the gate file:
cp .claude/skills/guarding-paths/templates/check-paths.mts.tmpl scripts/check-paths.mts
- Copy the empty allowlist:
cp .claude/skills/guarding-paths/templates/paths-allowlist.yml.tmpl .github/paths-allowlist.yml
- Add
"check:paths": "node scripts/check-paths.mts" to package.json.
- Wire
runPathHygieneCheck() into scripts/check.mts (after the existing checks).
- Append the rule snippet from
_shared/path-guard-rule.md to the repo's CLAUDE.md if a 1 path, 1 reference section is missing.
- Add the hook entry to
.claude/settings.json PreToolUse matcher Edit|Write:
{ "type": "command", "command": "node .claude/hooks/fleet/path-guard/index.mts" }
- Run the gate against the repo. Triage findings as you would in audit-and-fix mode.
Allowlisting a finding
Genuine exemptions are rare; most "false positives" should be reported as gate bugs. When needed, add an entry to .github/paths-allowlist.yml. Two ways to pin:
line:: exact line number. Strict; a single-line edit above shifts the entry off-target and the finding re-surfaces.snippet_hash:: 12-char SHA-256 prefix of the offending snippet (whitespace-normalized). Drift-resistant: survives reformatting, but any content-changing edit invalidates it. Get the hash via pnpm run check:paths --show-hashes.
Both may be set — either matching is sufficient. Prefer snippet_hash over raw line: when the exemption is expected to outlive routine reformatting; prefer line: when you specifically want the entry to fall off after any nearby edit.
Commit cadence
- Per-rule fix → its own commit. Rule A fix in
packages/foo/ and Rule C workflow fix go in separate commits even when found in the same audit pass.
- Re-run the gate before each commit. A green
pnpm run check:paths is the entry criterion.
- Don't leave a partial fix uncommitted across phases. Commit what's done on
chore/paths-audit-wip if the audit gets interrupted.
Conventional commit shape: fix(paths): rule A: extract foo build paths into scripts/paths.mts.
Tie-in with scanning-quality
/scanning-quality calls pnpm run check:paths --json as one of its sub-scans and surfaces findings in its A-F report. The full audit-and-fix workflow lives here. scanning-quality only detects during periodic scans.
Fix patterns
Per-rule fix templates (Rules A through G) plus the worked-example reference patterns from socket-btm: reference.md. File scaffolding for install mode lives in templates/.
