scaffold

name	scaffold
description	Stamp a bounded project, component, or CI

Scaffold

Create one bounded project, component, or CI scaffold. This specialist does not schedule RPI, create work ownership, mutate Git, or decide what happens next.

Contract

1. Resolve the requested target root and declare the exact paths that may be created or changed.
2. Refuse to overwrite an existing path without explicit caller authorization.
3. Generate idiomatic, functional files with at least one behavioral test for generated behavior.
4. Run the target's selected build, test, and lint commands once.
5. Report the files changed and factual command results, then stop.

Use the current agent and local shell unless the caller explicitly requests a different runtime. Preserve unrelated existing changes.

Clone a proven exemplar

Before inventing structure, find one working exemplar — an existing project, component, or CI file in this repository or the target's ecosystem that already builds, tests, and ships — and clone its shape, renaming and pruning to the request. Invent structure only where no exemplar exists, and say so in the report. Designing a novel layout when a proven one was available is the blank-page scaffold failure mode: every invented convention is an unreviewed decision the target team now owns. Stop condition: if two candidate exemplars disagree on a structural choice, pick the one whose verification commands pass today and record the choice; do not blend both.

One source of truth, one-way sync

When the scaffold contains derived or duplicated content (generated config, mirrored constants, templated CI matrices), designate exactly one source of truth and make every copy flow from it in one direction, atomically — a single regeneration step produces all copies, and hand-editing a copy is defined as wrong by the scaffold's own docs or checks. Two files that must be edited in tandem by memory are the twin-edit trap failure mode; a scaffold that ships one is incomplete. If the request forces bidirectional sync, stop and report the conflict instead of scaffolding it.

Modes

• A language and name request creates a project.
• A component type and name request adds a component to an existing project.
• A CI platform request creates the requested CI configuration.

If the request does not identify a target or language, ask only for the missing fact. The caller owns version control, revision, and delivery.

Evidence

Return:

• the target root and actual changed paths;
• the build, test, and lint commands selected;
• each command's exit code;
• any requested check that was not run.

The result contains no verdict, lifecycle state, retry instruction, or next action.

References

• references/generic-templates.md — optional historical shapes when the caller wants a specific template.
• references/agent-facing-tool-scaffolds.md
• references/scaffold.feature