Module catalog

Phase 4. Written 2026-08-14. Authoritative for: the module set — identity, rung, dependencies, conflicts, parameters, and what each ships. Not authoritative for: the pattern definitions (those are pattern-catalog.md), the module file format (ADR-0003), or detection (ADR-0004).

Turns the ~80 extracted patterns into an installable set. Every module cites the patterns it implements; it does not restate them.

1. The set

15 modules. Rung is the maturity ladder — add states it and asks for confirmation when a repo is installing above its level.

Dependency graph

graph TD
  instructions[instructions] --> gates[gates]
  instructions --> backlog[backlog]
  instructions --> workflows[workflows]
  instructions --> skills[skills]
  backlog --> findings[findings]
  findings --> audit[audit]
  gates --> ci[ci]
  gates --> docauth["doc-authority"]
  backlog --> release[release]
  ci --> release
  backlog --> concurrency[concurrency]
  gates --> concurrency
  ci --> concurrency
  backlog --> designsync["design-sync"]
  skills --> designsync
  adr[adr]:::free
  session[session]:::free
  specs[specs]:::free
  classDef free stroke-dasharray: 4 3

adr, session and specs (dashed) have no dependencies — they can be installed alone.

Three dependencies exist because a source repo violated them and paid:

• audit → findings → backlog — hexguard ran a good audit prompt 268 times into 268 documents, because no register existed to hold rows and no work-item object existed to close them into.
• workflows → skills (soft: skills supplies the invocation discipline) — hexguard-templates’s 9-step procedure is the best in the corpus and its AGENTS.md reads “placeholder for future additions.”
• doc-authority → gates — axiom-mesh’s non-negotiable doc rules were enforced by review only, and decayed inside the file that states them.

add refuses to install a module whose dependencies are unmet, naming the incident.

2. Module specifications

Each entry: rung · deps · conflicts · params · ships · cost · provenance. ships uses ADR-0003’s dispositions — files (create) · rules (render) · skills (copy) · fragments (merge) · gates (declare). (A sixth, docs, was dropped from ADR-0003 on first use — it had the same disposition as files.)

instructions

Rung 0 · deps: none · conflicts: none

The only module every repo installs. Owns ADR-0001’s entire output surface.

Authored 2026-08-14 — modules/instructions/.

• params: harnesses (list: claude, copilot, cursor, agents-md) · core_budget (default 200 lines — vendor guidance, see harness-landscape §3)
• files: AGENTS.md skeleton (identity · non-negotiables · repo map · validation matrix · routing) · CLAUDE.md bridge · .ai/rungs.toml · .ai/rules/ scaffold
• fragments: owns AGENTS.md and .gitignore — every other module merges into them
• gates: core-size (declared — core over budget) · render-current (declared — generate-derivable) · repo-map-current (declared) · shell-backticks (hook, Claude only)
• cost: one file to keep true; re-render on rule edits
• implements: entry-point agents-md-bridge scoped-instructions core-size-budget validation-matrix repo-map narrowest-anchor-loop negative-conventions comms-style shell-editing-rules
• provenance: 4/4 repos for the entry point; hexguard for scoping; rift-forge for the bridge and the shell rules — documented, then broken three more times, then made a hook

gates

Rung 1 · deps: instructions · conflicts: none

Owns the runner, the registry, and the ledger. Every other module registers its gates here rather than emitting scripts (ADR-0002).

Authored 2026-08-14 — modules/gates/. Its own gate set was trimmed during authoring: ids-unique and generated-current were listed here but are module-specific (backlog-ids, instructions-render-current), and what gates actually contributes is the engines they run on. What it keeps is repo-agnostic — plus two that no source repo had: rules-declare-enforcement (failure mode F1 made detectable) and self-tests-both-directions (the meta-gate).

• params: tiers (default fast, full) · ledger (default on)
• files: .ai/gates.toml registry · ledger .gitignore entry
• gates: the structural set, all declared — links-resolve · ids-unique · required-sections · referenced-paths-exist · frontmatter-valid · generated-current
• cost: near-zero to run; the runner is invoked as npx @rungs/cli check
• implements: structural-gates gate-self-test read-the-negation reasoned-exemption computed-claims generate-derivable enforcement-declaration ageing-signal tool-level-hook
• provenance: rift-forge — 42 check: gates with 27 self-tests, and 82 registry entries with hand-typed durations that motivated the ledger

enforcement-declaration is enforced here: every rule any module generates is tagged gated or review-only, and doctor reports rules that claim MANDATORY with no gate behind them. This is the module that makes failure mode F1 detectable.

backlog

Rung 1 · deps: instructions · conflicts: none

Authored 2026-08-14 — modules/backlog/ is the format exemplar.

• params: id_prefix (default WI) · root (default backlog) · integration_branch (default main) · branch_prefix (default feature)
• files: docs/{{root}}/README.md (the methodology) · BACKLOG.md board · TEMPLATE.md · items/
• skills: work-item (execute one end to end) · backlog-summary (per-category open items, ranking, workflow health)
• fragments: an AGENTS.md block naming the id scheme and the branch convention
• gates: ids (declared — uniqueness, citation integrity) · stale-blocker (declared — a doc may not say it is waiting for work that has finished) · merged-status (declared, one-directional — a merged branch cannot still be awaiting review)
• cost: one file per unit of work; a status field to keep true
• implements: work-item-lifecycle item-template-required-fields branch-per-item planning-rides-trunk scope-discipline epics-and-subitems bookkeeping-gates

sprint-archive and backlog-spaces were listed here and are deferred, found while authoring. Both are optional sections of the methodology, and ADR-0003 has no conditionals — so shipping them here would put sprint ceremony in front of every repo that installs a backlog. The evidence says defer: none of the four source repos started with sprints and only one ended with them (rift-forge, at 4 sprints against 543 archived items). What backlog keeps is plain archive-on-demand, since a container outgrowing itself is a rung-1 problem. Sprints become a rung-2 sprints module when a repo needs them.

• provenance: rift-forge — 102 live + 543 archived items; the two bookkeeping gates caught 37 items at review with code already landed, and one in_progress eight days past its own merge

findings

Rung 1 · deps: backlog

• params: id_prefix (default F) · path (default docs/{{backlog.root}}/FINDINGS.md)
• files: the register + its README
• skills: record-finding — record, and triage (promote · fix · dismiss with a reason)
• gates: findings-ids (declared) · dismissed-has-reason (declared)
• cost: near-zero per finding — that is the point
• implements: findings-log record-without-derailing finding-promotion audit-to-register
• provenance: rift-forge — 91 findings. A finding is the observation; a work item is the decision. The object hexguard lacked under 268 audit reports

adr

Rung 1 · deps: none · conflicts: none

• params: path (default docs/decisions) · id_format (default ADR-####)
• files: index.md with the admission rule · TEMPLATE.md
• gates: adr-index-current (declared) · adr-admission-fields (declared)
• cost: one record per constraining decision — the admission rule is what keeps that small
• implements: adr-record adr-admission-rule
• provenance: axiom-mesh — 48 ADRs stayed navigable because most candidates were routed elsewhere by a five-criterion gate

session

Rung 1 · deps: none · conflicts: none

• params: mode — file (an axiom-mesh-style handoff doc) or board (derive from the backlog; cheaper, less narrative). Default board when backlog is installed
• files: .ai/session.md with fixed sections · .ai/archive/
• gates: session-sections-present (declared) · archive-named (declared)
• cost: a few minutes per session close, in file mode
• implements: session-handoff settled-decisions-lock dated-session-archive board-as-state
• provenance: axiom-mesh — 21 dated archives, and the “Active Constraints / Decisions Since Last Archive” section that stops a fresh session relitigating settled questions

ci

Rung 1 · deps: gates

• params: provider (default github) · trigger (push | land)
• files: one workflow calling npx @rungs/cli check, matrix over packages where relevant
• gates: workflow-proliferation (declared — near-identical workflow files over a threshold)
• cost: CI minutes; the land trigger option exists because they are billed
• implements: matrix-not-per-item-ci workflow-proliferation-check ci-at-land-time
• provenance: hexguard — 98 near-identical per-package release workflows, because a phase checklist told the agent to add one each time. The proliferation gate exists so that cannot recur silently

specs

Rung 2 · deps: none

• params: path (default docs/specs) · id_format (default <PREFIX>-F## / <PREFIX>-US-###) · split_lines (default 600)
• files: README.md conventions · spec template with a mandatory scope section
• gates: spec-status-evidence (declared — a ✅ story names the commit that closed it; a 🟡 carries its note) · spec-ids-unique (declared)
• cost: a spec per surface; status kept per story
• implements: spec-ids-and-status mandatory-scope-section demo-not-done split-threshold reference-implementation-pointer adoption-guide
• provenance: hexguard-templates — “Demo ≠ done… a spec that overclaims integration is worse than no spec”, which needed a gate more than it needed a sentence

workflows

Rung 2 · deps: instructions

Decision procedures. Content, not mechanism — the mechanism is skills.

• params: upstream_repo (enables the extend-upstream branch of the reuse table)
• rules: the reuse decision table · doc-tier selection · per-concern decomposition
• skills: implement-story (or implement-item) — the numbered end-to-end procedure
• docs: the authority doc the rules cite
• cost: authoring only; Tier 0 means trivial work stays undocumented
• implements: reuse-decision-table second-consumer-threshold doc-tier-selection per-concern-decomposition multi-story-batching numbered-workflow-steps phase-checklist lifecycle-verbs controlled-performance-comparison
• provenance: hexguard-templates — “Use this table instead of ‘use judgment’”, and Tier 0 must exist or the process gets routed around

skills

Rung 2 · deps: instructions

Not “the ability to have skills” — every module ships skills via ADR-0003. This is the authoring discipline and the gates that hold it.

• params: dir (resolved by harness set per ADR-0001: .claude/skills/ or .agents/skills/)
• rules: how to write a description: that routes · the neighbour convention
• gates: skill-spec-pure (declared — frontmatter restricted to the six Agent Skills fields unless extensions are opted in) · skill-names-neighbours (declared) · skill-writes-artifact (declared — a skill’s body names where its output lands)
• cost: near-zero
• implements: invocable-procedure skill-neighbours prompt-writes-artifact operating-skills prompt-index-routing external-reasoning-prompt model-selection-prompt
• provenance: rift-forge (13 skills, each naming its neighbours because at that count descriptions alone stop disambiguating) · axiom-mesh (21 playbooks with no invocation surface, whose content is directly portable now that SKILL.md is a standard)

audit

Rung 2 · deps: findings

• params: subject (what gets audited: package, service, surface) · criteria (list)
• skills: assess-<subject> — run the criteria, emit rows into the findings register
• gates: audit-output-is-rows (declared — refuses a per-subject document tree)
• cost: one run per subject; the register absorbs the output
• implements: audit-to-register lifecycle-verbs
• provenance: hexguard — the audit prompt was good enough to run 268 times; the output form was the defect. This module exists to keep the prompt and change the output

release

Rung 3 · deps: backlog, ci

• params: lines (candidate / main / release/<version>) · changelog (changelog.d | keepachangelog) · version_scheme
• skills: cut-release — gates → bump → changelog → tag → deploy branch → next candidate, plus hotfix and rollback
• gates: changelog-entry-present (declared) · version-consistent (declared)
• cost: one procedure per release
• implements: candidate-and-release-lines release-skill
• provenance: rift-forge

design-sync

Rung 3 · deps: backlog, skills

• params: source (the external design authority) · mirror (default design-system/)
• skills: design-pull (down-sync only) · design-align (route every delta to a backlog item, a phase-gated future item, or an upstream change request)
• gates: design-deltas-routed (declared — no delta without a destination)
• cost: one pull-and-align pass per upstream change
• implements: external-authority-precedence two-way-design-sync
• provenance: rift-forge (industrialized) · hexguard-templates (the precedence rule: the design project is “layout/visual guidance, not a functional spec”). Never silent divergence

doc-authority

Rung 4 · deps: gates

For repos where several documentation surfaces restate each other. Expensive, and the highest-value module in the catalog when it applies.

• params: registry_path · scope_headers (bool)
• files: doc_ownership.md — topic · authoritative doc · must NOT appear in
• gates: ownership-respected (declared — the must-not-appear-in column, checked by term) · scope-headers-present (declared) · working-rules (declared — rule × surfaces propagation) · no-redirect-stubs (declared)
• cost: ongoing rule curation — a real recurring cost, stated at install
• implements: doc-ownership-registry scope-headers stub-rule no-paraphrase no-redirect-stubs working-rule-propagation defect-register-split inline-gap-callout
• provenance: axiom-mesh’s registry married to rift-forge’s gate — the combination neither repo has. axiom-mesh wrote the best ownership model in the corpus and checked none of it; rift-forge built the propagation gate after measuring five working rules that had changed and reached none of the files that teach them

concurrency

Rung 5 · deps: backlog, gates, ci

add states the threshold and requires confirmation: below ~5 concurrent sessions on one integration branch this is pure overhead. Selling this to a rung-1 repo is the most likely way this tool does harm.

• params: integration_branch · green_ref · worktree_root
• files: .gitattributes merge-driver declarations · setup script
• gates: no-integration-checkout (declared) · generated-not-text-merged (driver)
• cost: high — a real tooling surface with its own failure modes
• implements: green-ref failure-attribution land-protocol lock-not-checkout no-pre-land-full-verify preflight conflict-classes regenerate-never-merge id-claiming worktree-lifecycle ci-at-land-time
• provenance: rift-forge at 401 branches and 51 worktrees. Ships with its corrections included: the checkout-based lock that blocked every session and did not work, and the pre-land full verify that caused three of five refused lands

3. Deliberately not modules

The pattern catalog is research; not every pattern earns a module.

A testing module was specified in pattern-catalog §L’s proposed set and is dropped here. Its three patterns split cleanly into the three rows above, and what remained was stack-specific. That proposal was written before ADRs 0002–0003 set the no-stack-specific boundary.

4. Install profiles

rungs init offers these rather than a checkbox list of 15:

Profiles are starting points; add and remove work per module afterwards.

5. Corpus expectation matrix

Per ADR-0004 §5, a module whose [detect] block misclassifies any of the four source repos is not finished. This is the Phase 6 acceptance criterion, stated up front.

C create · A adopt · P partial (adopt + install the gap) · ¶ paradigm difference, report only · — not applicable

The two cells that justify the whole product: gates on rift-forge (it has more gate machinery than anyone and no ledger, and gets one without a single file of its own being touched) and doc-authority across axiom-mesh + rift-forge (each has exactly the half the other lacks).

6. Next

1. Author modules/backlog/ in full — done 2026-08-14, modules/backlog/. The format survived, with two amendments it forced: ADR-0003’s redundant docs/ disposition was dropped, and sprint-archive / backlog-spaces were deferred out of this module because substitution-only templating cannot make a section optional.
2. instructions and gates — done 2026-08-14. The tracked profile’s spine is authored: the two modules that own every shared surface the others merge into.
3. Then findings, adr, session — done 2026-08-14. The tracked profile is complete: six modules, every rung-0 and rung-1 module in the catalog.
4. Then rung 2, then rung 3+ — done 2026-08-14. All fifteen modules are authored. Phase 4 is complete.
5. Phase 5. Nothing has been executed yet: every finding so far came from writing modules, not running them. The [detect] blocks are unverified claims and the gate tables describe engines that do not exist. The first executable milestone is render plus doctor on the four source repos, which is also Phase 6’s acceptance criterion arriving early.

Still unexercised by the three authored modules, and therefore unproven: a module with more than one rules/ file; a live command gate (gates documents the kind and adopts into it, but ships none); a conflicts entry; and the detect.paradigm path, which needs axiom-mesh in front of it to be tested honestly.

Format findings so far — eleven across six modules, all applied to their sources rather than noted. ADR-0003’s redundant docs/ disposition dropped · sprint-archive/backlog-spaces deferred because substitution-only cannot make a section optional · hooks resolved as a gate trigger, not a sixth thing a module ships · markers use the target file’s comment syntax · fragments count against the entry document’s line budget · optional prose ships commented out · substitution vs. behavioural parameters (consumed_by) · cross-module parameter references for declared dependencies · a path parameter may contain separators · a parameter meaning “do nothing” is the absence of the module · and one dead parameter caught only by auditing all six at once.

Rung 2 added three more, one of them the most consequential yet:

• ${{ … }} is never substituted — GitHub Actions expressions share the delimiter, so without a $-passthrough rule the ci module silently corrupts its own workflow file at install.
• A behavioural parameter reaches file content through a managed block, never a conditional (ci.trigger regenerates the on: block).
• A fragment is a routing stanza, not a summary. Found by assembling the whole profile: a 73-line skeleton plus ten ~12-line fragments is 193 of the 200-line budget with nothing left for the repo’s own conventions. The budget binds at profile scale, not per module — which no single module could have revealed. Rewritten as routing stanzas the profile assembles to 134, leaving 66.

Rung 3+ added two more: a parameter never holds a value decided at runtime (release first declared candidate/{{version}}, referencing a version that does not exist at install time), and a module may declare a [threshold] with confirm = true — used only by concurrency, because the maturity ladder is advice until something enforces it.

Sixteen findings across fifteen modules, and the character changed twice: the early ones were corrections to the format, the middle ones were constraints only visible when modules compose, and the last were refinements. A full fifteen-module install assembles to 165 of the 200-line budget.