Define Docs Norms

Skill: Define Docs Norms

Purpose

Fix a reviewed norms proposal into docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md and make it the canonical rule set for the project's documentation governance.

Core Objective

Primary goal: create or update the project norms file safely and auditably.

Success criteria (all of them must hold):

1. ✅ The input proposal is unambiguous and ready to write
2. ✅ The norms file structure matches the project schema and conventions
3. ✅ The change notes are clear (rules added, modified, removed)
4. ✅ The only write target is docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md
5. ✅ The output can be consumed directly by runtime / linter / CI tooling (per rules/doc-health-criteria.md)

Acceptance test: can the norms file serve directly as the basis for path/naming/front-matter validation, and be parsed reliably by other skills?

Scope Boundaries

This skill owns:

• Creating or updating docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md
• Merging existing norms with a new proposal (configurable strategy)
• Emitting the change summary and migration notes

This skill does not own:

• Discovering and deriving norms (a person or the AgentFabric runtime takes that)
• Repository tidying and file migration (per rules/repo-structure-hygiene.md, carried out by the AgentFabric runtime or by a person)
• Compliance audit and readiness scoring (runtime / linter / CI tooling takes that)

Handoff point: once the norms are written, structural cleanup and compliance checking are carried out by runtime / linter / CI tooling per rules/repo-structure-hygiene.md and rules/doc-health-criteria.md.

Use Cases

• A new project establishing ARTIFACT_NORMS for the first time
• An existing project promoting a proposal into formal rules
• Iterating on the norms (paths, naming, field policy)

Behavior

Stage 1: confirm the input

1. Read the proposal (usually from docs/calibration/docs-norms-proposal.md)
2. Check whether an older docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md exists
3. Confirm the write strategy: create | merge | replace

Stage 2: assemble the norms

1. Assemble the path mapping, the naming policy and the front-matter standard
2. Write a manual-confirmation note for any low-confidence rule (where there is one)
3. Validate format consistency and parseability

Stage 3: write and summarize

1. Write docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md
2. Emit the change summary for this pass (added/modified/removed)
3. Emit the suggested next steps: the runtime tidies up per rules/repo-structure-hygiene.md, plus compliance checking per rules/doc-health-criteria.md

Input and Output

Input

• The reviewed norms proposal
• Optionally an existing docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md
• Optionally a merge strategy (create|merge|replace)

Output

• docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md
• The change summary

Restrictions

Hard Boundaries

• Writing the norms file is the only write allowed; no repository restructuring is performed
• Stop and ask for confirmation when the input proposal is ambiguous
• Must not mark an unresolved conflicting rule as settled

Skill Boundaries

Do not do these (other skills own them):

• Discovery and derivation: a person or the AgentFabric runtime
• Compliance scoring: runtime / linter / CI tooling (per rules/doc-health-criteria.md)
• File tidying: the runtime, per rules/repo-structure-hygiene.md

Self-Check

• A rule input ready to write was received
• docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md was written correctly
• The rule change summary was emitted
• No write outside the norms file was performed

Examples

Example 1: creating norms from a proposal

• Input: docs/calibration/docs-norms-proposal.md
• Behavior: create
• Output: docs/ARTIFACT_NORMS.md

Example 2: an incremental update to existing norms

• Input: the old norms + the new proposal
• Behavior: merge
• Output: the updated norms file + the change summary