chemenu/instructions/dev/stack-dev/SKILL.md

name, description

name	description
stack-dev	Switch a session into tool-development mode - extending tools/wikitool, the compiler, the type schema, or the instruction/skill layer itself, instead of operating on wiki content. Use when the user asks to add a wikitool command, change a type-spec, fix or extend the compiler, or otherwise work on the stack rather than ingest/query/manage/lint the wiki.

Stack Development Mode

Purpose: Recognize a session that is about the tool stack itself - tools/wikitool, the type schema, the instruction/skill layer - rather than wiki content, and switch the rules that apply accordingly.

Trigger: The user asks to add or change a wikitool command, extend the compiler, change a type-spec, or work on instructions//types//tools/ as code rather than as a place to run wiki-ingest/wiki-query/wiki-manage/wiki-lint/wiki-status against.

This directory is dev-only. instructions/dev/ is excluded wholesale by tools/wikitool dist export - nothing here ever reaches a distributed instance, and there is no restore path. If you are in a distributed instance, this skill should not be present at all; stack development happens in the origin repo instead (see AGENTS.md's routing line).

What changes in this mode

• Source-binding does not apply to code. AGENTS.md invariant 3 ("never file an unsourced answer into the wiki") governs kb/ content, not the code you write to extend the stack. Ordinary software-engineering judgment applies to tools/chemenu/*.py, types/*, instructions/* - it does not need a raw/ source or a citation.
• Test and review conventions from instructions/dev/ apply instead, once written down there (step 2 below lists what currently exists). Until a given convention has its own instruction file, follow the existing test files' own patterns (tools/chemenu/tests/) rather than inventing a new one silently.
• Everything outside this directory still applies. The tool error contract, the gates, and "never hand-edit generated files" (AGENTS.md invariants 1, 5-8) are about how the tool behaves at runtime, not about developing it, but they still bind normal session conduct (e.g. still use tools/wikitool publish, still respect the gates, when the session also touches wiki content).

Steps

1. Confirm the mode. If the task is ambiguous between "extend the tool" and "operate the wiki", ask rather than guess - the two have different rules for the same directories.

2. Consult instructions/dev/ for the concrete procedure. Currently: commonplace-kb.md - vendored knowledge base on agent context engineering, memory and deploy-time learning; consult before a design decision in those areas. issue-tracking.md - open work lives in Gitea issues, one per work package, labelled prio/1..3 and size/XS..L. There is no TODO.md. Read it before filing something for later, or before deciding what to pick up next. testing-conventions.md - the suite runs against a deliberately empty machine; what the autouse fixture already neutralizes, and what a test still has to establish itself. Read it before adding or changing a test. More instructions are added here incrementally as stack-development needs come up - this list grows without needing this skill file to change shape.

3. Raise the version, if the change ships. A change under tools/, types/, instructions/, AGENTS.md or a CONTRACT.md reaches every future instance, so it needs a version and a changelog entry:

   tools/wikitool version bump --patch --title "<what changed>"
   

   Never edit VERSION or the entry's heading by hand - bump writes both, and docs verify fails a tree where they disagree. Pick the part by what an existing instance would have to do:

   Change	Part
   Fix, no interface change	--patch
   New capability, backwards compatible	--minor
   Existing content must be migrated	--major

   A --major bump additionally needs a migration document for the new version - written per migrate-corpus.md - or --no-migration "<reason>" when no content actually has to change. bump refuses otherwise, and so does docs verify: an instance learning that it must migrate, with nothing telling it how, is a dead end.

   Then write the entry's body - bump deliberately leaves it empty, the same way new leaves the prose.

   Prose-only changes (README.md, INSTALL.md, EVALS.md) and the workflows under .gitea/ do not need a bump - CI's version gate is scoped to what changes behaviour.

4. Verify before publishing. tools/wikitool docs verify, tools/wikitool instructions verify, and the relevant pytest run in tools/ - the same checks any stack change must pass, run explicitly rather than assumed. CI (.gitea/workflows/ci.yml) runs these plus a full setup-instance.md replay against a fresh dist export; a push to main that moves VERSION additionally triggers a tagged release. CI does the tagging - a session never creates a tag, which is what keeps AGENTS.md invariant 5 intact.

Decision points

• Touches both stack code and wiki content in one session? Apply this skill's rules to the code changes and the normal content skills' rules to the content changes - they are not mutually exclusive within a session, only per change.

Scope

Not for wiki content work - use wiki-ingest/wiki-query/wiki-manage/wiki-lint/ wiki-status for that. Not for setting up a new instance (instructions/setup-instance.md) or a fresh clone of this repo (instructions/bootstrap.md).