validate

name	validate
description	Structural lint over the spec tree — required frontmatter fields, valid status and effort values, track location, DAG acyclicity, dispatch consistency, orphans, status consistency. Read-only; reports problems and fixes nothing. Use to check the tree is well-formed; use report for what the specs say about progress.
argument-hint	["spec-file.md"]
allowed-tools	Read, Grep, Glob, Bash(ls *)

Validate Specs

Run structural validation on spec documents against the repo's document model — a document-model spec under specs/, an internals doc describing how specs are parsed, or, failing both, the conventions below. If a specific spec file is given as $ARGUMENTS, validate only that spec (and run cross-spec checks it participates in). Otherwise, validate the entire spec tree.

Step 0: Parse arguments

If an argument is provided, treat it as a single spec file to validate. Otherwise, validate all specs under specs/.

Step 1: Discover all specs

1. Glob for all spec files recursively: specs/**/*.md (excluding README.md and any non-spec markdown files like changelogs).
2. For each spec file, parse YAML frontmatter between --- fences. Extract: title, status, depends_on, affects, effort, created, updated, author, dispatched_task_id.
3. Determine leaf vs non-leaf: a spec is non-leaf if a subdirectory with the same name (without .md) exists and contains at least one child spec.
4. Build the full spec tree (parent-child from filesystem) and the dependency DAG (from depends_on edges).

Step 2: Per-spec validation

For each spec, check these rules. Classify each finding as error or warning per the severity column.

Required fields (error)

title, status, effort, created, updated, author must all be present in the frontmatter. Report each missing field. (track may be a frontmatter field or derived from the path, depending on the repo's layout; see Valid track.)

Valid status (error)

status must be one of: vague, drafted, validated, testing, complete, stale, archived — the seven lifecycle states. testing is the transient drift-verdict state between validated and complete; a spec in testing is valid (not an error), though a long-lived testing carrying a testing_pending reason is worth a warning. The server may also set the optional fields implementation_commit (base..tip, present during testing) and testing_pending (a reason string when the drift tester failed); both are valid.

Valid track (error)

Grouping and ordering are independent axes, and they compose — specs/local/003-live-serve.md is grouped by directory and numbered. Check each separately; never infer one from the other, and never decide a single layout for the whole repo from a majority vote.

Grouping. Every spec must have a track from exactly one source:

• A directory under specs/ supplies it — the segment immediately after specs/. A track: key that merely restates the directory is a removable no-op.
• A spec sitting directly under specs/ must carry a track: frontmatter field. A spec with neither is an error.

Ordering. An NNN- filename prefix is an optional, per-directory reading order. Judge it within each directory, never across the tree:

• A directory whose specs are numbered should number all of them; flag an unnumbered straggler.
• Flag duplicate numbers inside one directory. The same number in two different directories is fine — they are separate number spaces.
• A directory with no numbering at all is not an error. Do not ask for numbers that were never adopted.
• An archived spec keeps the number it had (specs/.archive/…/042-foo.md), so depends_on paths pointing at it still resolve.

Numbers are never the dependency order. That is depends_on, checked below.

Valid effort (error)

effort must be one of: small, medium, large, xlarge.

Date format (error)

created and updated must be valid ISO dates (YYYY-MM-DD). updated must be greater than or equal to created.

Dispatch consistency (error)

Non-leaf specs must have dispatched_task_id: null (or absent). Leaf specs may have null or a valid UUID.

depends_on targets exist (error)

Every path in depends_on must resolve to an existing spec file relative to the repository root.

No self-dependency (error)

A spec must not appear in its own depends_on list.

affects paths exist (warning)

Every path in affects should resolve to an existing file or directory in the codebase. Only a warning because code may not exist yet for vague/drafted specs. Suppressed for archived specs — deleted paths are not actionable.

Body not empty (warning)

Specs with status beyond vague should have meaningful content below the frontmatter (more than just a title heading). Suppressed for archived specs — a stub with only frontmatter is valid.

Step 3: Cross-spec validation (tree-wide)

Run these checks across the full spec tree.

DAG is acyclic (error)

Perform a topological sort on the depends_on graph. If a cycle is detected, report the full cycle path (e.g., A -> B -> C -> A).

No orphan directories (warning)

A <name>/ subdirectory under a spec track should have a corresponding <name>.md parent spec file in the same directory.

No orphan specs (warning)

A <name>.md file that has a <name>/ subdirectory should have at least one child spec inside that directory.

Status consistency (warning)

A complete non-leaf spec should not have incomplete leaves in its subtree. Check recursively: if any leaf in the subtree has a status other than complete, warn. Skipped when the non-leaf is archived — the subtree is considered below glass regardless of leaf states.

Stale propagation (warning)

If a spec is stale, check all specs that list it in their depends_on. Those that are still validated should be flagged for review — their assumptions about the stale spec may no longer hold. Does not fire for archived dependencies — a validated spec depending on an archived spec receives a dependency-is-archived advisory note instead (see below).

Track location (warning)

Where a spec sits in a track directory, warn if it also carries a track: key — the directory already supplies it and the loader ignores the field. Where a spec sits directly under specs/, there is no directory to cross-check, so this warning does not apply; a missing track: there is the error above.

dependency-is-archived (warning)

A live spec whose depends_on includes an archived spec. Advisory only — recommend removing the edge or documenting why it still matters. Does not count as a stale-propagation warning.

Unique dispatches (error)

No two specs may share the same non-null dispatched_task_id value. Collect all dispatched_task_id values and report duplicates.

Step 4: Generate report

Present findings grouped by severity, then by spec:

## Spec Validation Report

Specs scanned: N
Errors: N
Warnings: N

### Errors

#### specs/shared/sandbox-backends.md
- [error] Missing required field: author
- [error] depends_on target does not exist: specs/shared/nonexistent.md

#### specs/local/foo.md
- [error] Invalid status: "wip" (must be vague|drafted|validated|testing|complete|stale|archived)

### Cross-Spec Errors
- [error] Cycle detected: A.md -> B.md -> C.md -> A.md
- [error] Duplicate dispatched_task_id "abc-123": specs/a.md, specs/b.md

### Warnings

#### specs/cloud/bar.md
- [warning] affects path does not exist: internal/cloud/bar.go
- [warning] Body is empty for a "drafted" spec

### Cross-Spec Warnings
- [warning] Orphan directory: specs/shared/old-feature/ has no parent spec
- [warning] Stale propagation: specs/shared/api.md is stale, but
  specs/local/client.md (validated) depends on it

### Verdict: PASS / N errors, M warnings

If there are zero errors, the verdict is PASS. If there are errors, list the count. Warnings alone do not cause a failure.

Notes

• This skill is read-only. It does not modify any files.
• When validating a single spec ($ARGUMENTS provided), still run cross-spec checks that involve that spec (its depends_on targets, specs that depend on it, cycle detection through it).
• Specs without YAML frontmatter are reported as having all required fields missing — they may be legacy specs that predate the document model.
• When the repo implements its own spec validator, these rules mirror it. Report a disagreement rather than silently preferring one side.