Goals

Goals — read-only fitness measurement

Inspect the active goals document and run only the caller-selected measurement, validation, drift, history, export, or meta-goal command.

Measurement stays trustworthy only because it cannot mutate what it measures; the moment a fitness report edits a goal, the next report measures the editor, not the project.

Named failure mode — advice creep: a measurement report that ends with "you should…" has silently become work selection.

Anti-pattern: padding the report with recommendations to look helpful. Corrective: return the numbers, the evidence gaps, and checked/not-checked scope, and let the caller decide.

Boundary

• Prefer GOALS.md when both Markdown and legacy YAML exist.
• Preserve stable directive and gate identities in the report.
• Every measured gate must name its executable check and observed outcome.
• Do not add, remove, prioritize, recommend, apply, prune, migrate, or otherwise mutate goals.
• Do not translate a fitness gap into work selection or a next action.

Read-only commands

ao goals measure --json
ao goals validate --json
ao goals drift
ao goals history
ao goals export
ao goals meta --json

Run the requested command once. Return the command, exit code, goal-level results, aggregate measurement, missing evidence, and checked/not-checked scope. Then stop.