manage-spec-anchors

name	manage-spec-anchors
description	Partial Skill: invoke by name only — corpus/spec-anchors' curation engine for SDD's extra spec-discovery anchors — loaded by the manage gateway (Housekeeping), not triggered by users directly.
user-invocable	false
metadata	{"internal":true}

Manage Spec Anchors

The concrete engine for the SDD spec-anchors config — the opt-in registry of extra spec anchors that discover-specs scans on top of the three fixed conventions (ADR-0019). It exists so a user curates those anchors through a clean interface instead of hand-editing .agents/sdd/spec-anchors.toml. Loaded in-session by the manage gateway (Housekeeping group); it carries a self-contained .mts script (the repo's node-≥23.6 / no-deps convention).

The config it curates

.agents/sdd/spec-anchors.toml carries one key — anchors = [ … ] — a list of repo-relative directory patterns. * globs one segment; ** globs zero or more segments (any depth, including zero); <project> globs and captures a segment as the spec's name. Each pattern names a directory the engine probes for spec.md. The three fixed conventions (.agents/spec/, .agents/specs/<project>/, <project-path>/.agents/spec/) are implicit and always scanned — never listed here, and never curatable.

Run an operation

node "<skill>/scripts/manage-spec-anchors.mts" [--root .] <operation>

Operation	Effect
--list	list the three fixed anchors (each explained) + every custom anchor, flagged fixed/custom
--add <pattern>	validate + append a custom anchor (creates the config if absent); refuses a fixed convention or a malformed pattern
--remove <pattern>	drop a custom anchor; a no-op (config unchanged) when the anchor is absent
--edit <old> <new>	replace one custom anchor; refuses a malformed <new>
--induce <path>	from a sample spec directory, offer a literal-dir candidate and a <project> generalization; refuses a path that is not a directory under the repo
--preview <pattern>	list the project(s) a candidate pattern would discover, without persisting it; a malformed pattern is refused, a zero-match pattern reports none

Curate with preview. The intended flow: take the user's sample path → --induce it → --preview each candidate to show the matched projects → confirm with the user → --add the chosen pattern. Never write a pattern the user has not seen the effect of.

Boundaries

Writes only .agents/sdd/spec-anchors.toml — never a spec.md, status, approval, or a freeze; it is operational config, not spec content (so manage's write-ownership guard holds). It does not scan or list specs — that is discover-specs, which reads this config. The read-side fail-safe (an already-corrupted config never breaks discovery) is discover-specs' guarantee, not this engine's; this engine validates on the write side so a bad pattern is never persisted.

When node is absent, an agent performs the same edits by hand: read the anchors array, apply the CRUD, validate a pattern is repo-relative with only literal / * / ** / <project> segments, and never write a fixed convention.