Conformity gate

The fifteen barsCopy Anchor Link

The gate runs only machine-checkable validators. The reasoned judgment that the Reasoned bars call for, and the reasoned half of each Mechanical + reasoned bar, is evaluated in review.

Severity ladderCopy Anchor Link

The gate has no Critical, Important or Advisory ladder and no two-finding threshold. Without --strict (or APOTHEM_CONFORMITY_STRICT=1), the gate reports findings and exits 0. With --strict, a single-file or hook check exits 2 when any matcher fails, and a corpus run (--all or --all-perwrite) exits 2 when a blocking validator or matcher fails; advisory findings are reported only. The installed Write/Edit hook does not pass --strict, so it reports findings and the write proceeds unless APOTHEM_CONFORMITY_STRICT=1 is set in its environment.

ValidatorsCopy Anchor Link

The mechanical fraction lives at src/apothem/conformity/, orchestrated by src/apothem/conformity/gate.py. Each validator runs in one of three ways:

• per-write: on every pending write (--hook), or on every tracked file with --all-perwrite.
• standalone: across the whole repository with --all, or one at a time with --check <name>.
• change-set: against a staged diff, run directly as python -m apothem.conformity.semver_stability_grep --staged, not through the gate.

The table below is generated from the validator modules.

The conformity package ships 54 validators: 22 per-write, 31 standalone and 1 change-set. The gate registers the per-write and standalone ones.

Running the gateCopy Anchor Link

On an installed harness the gate runs automatically: Claude Code's settings.json wires it as a PreToolUse hook that invokes the materialized copy at ~/.claude/.apothem/support/conformity/gate.py before every Write/Edit. The gate then checks only writes under its hook scope, and a write outside the scope passes silently; Running the conformity gate lists the scope. From a source checkout, the module form drives the same code; prefix each python command below with PYTHONPATH=src. The gate is advisory by default: it reports findings and exits 0. Add --strict to exit 2 on a blocking finding. An unknown validator name exits 3.

# Every standalone validator across the repository:
python -m apothem.conformity.gate --all .

# The same sweep, failing on a blocking finding (the CI form):
python -m apothem.conformity.gate --all --strict .

# Every per-write validator against every tracked file:
python -m apothem.conformity.gate --all-perwrite .

# One validator by name (names come from --list):
python -m apothem.conformity.gate --check naming-grep .

# List every registered validator as JSON:
python -m apothem.conformity.gate --list

# Single-file dispatch (mimics the PreToolUse hook):
echo '{"tool_input": {"file_path": "path/to/file", "content": "..."}}' \
    | python -m apothem.conformity.gate --hook

python -m apothem.conformity.gate --help prints the usage summary. See Running the conformity gate for the full procedure.

ReferenceCopy Anchor Link

• Pre-emission gate registry — canonical bar definitions
• Outward conformity registry — M1-M15 detailed semantics
• Cross-cutting mandates — mandate source of truth
• Performance discipline — per-class runtime budgets