# Zhtw Conventions > The zhtw-mcp conventions no gate enforces - the register a comment, a commit message and a PR reply are written in, where Chinese belongs in the tree and where it does not, the untracked working docs at the repo root, deleting a redundant surface instead of deprecating it, and the repository layout. Use when drafting a commit message or a PR description, adding a file or a public surface, removing a flag or a subcommand, or writing a comment longer than a line. - Skill: `sysprog21/zhtw-conventions` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add sysprog21/zhtw-conventions` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/sysprog21/zhtw-conventions/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: AI & ML - Author: sysprog21 (https://skillmd.com/u/sysprog21) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/sysprog21/zhtw-conventions --- # zhtw-mcp conventions The gate settles formatting and correctness. `cargo fmt`, clippy, `black`, `shellcheck` and `scripts/indent.sh` run in `make check`, so none of that is here. What is here is what a reviewer would otherwise have to say out loud, plus the rules enforced by the git hooks rather than by CI: the commit message and the staged-content checks. Any `cargo build` installs them, through `build.rs`; `make hooks` installs them on their own. `README.md` and `CLAUDE.md` are the tracked and local halves respectively, and this file does not restate either. Where two of them speak to the same thing, `README.md` wins. ## Commit messages The house style is Chris Beams' seven rules, and `scripts/git-commit-msg.sh` enforces the mechanical ones: subject within 50 columns, capitalized, imperative, no trailing period, no backticks, no conventional-commit type prefix, body wrapped at 72 columns, no em dash character, no tabs, and no control or bidirectional-override characters. An area prefix such as `Windows: retry the replace` is not a conventional-commit prefix and is allowed. Run `git log --no-merges --format=%s` if you want the calibration set rather than the claim; the log sits at 43 columns in the median. Two of those rules are this project's rather than Beams'. Widths are counted in terminal columns, so a CJK character costs two, which is what `git log --oneline` has to fit. And the subject line is English prose that may quote a Chinese term, which is what every subject in this log already is: ``` Narrow 聯繫 cross_strait flagging to contact-copy Add word "test" to negative_context_clues for pass rule Take the binary under test from cargo ``` The rule the hook cannot check is what the body says. This tree keeps its detailed reasoning in the comment next to the code, often several paragraphs per decision. A body that retells the mechanics duplicates that comment and then goes stale on its own. Write the premise and the trade, once, usually a single paragraph. Backticks are fine there and not in the subject. ## Prose register Source comments use plain prose: no em dash, and no backticks around an identifier. Name it plainly, and use quotes only where a bare token would read as part of the sentence. `scripts/check-comments.sh` enforces both, in `make check` and in the pre-commit hook, so this is a rule you hear about at commit time rather than in review. Two exemptions, both because the text is markup rather than prose. Markdown files under `docs/` and the README use ordinary GitHub Markdown. Rust doc comments, `///` and `//!`, are rustdoc markdown: a backticked span renders as code and an intra-doc link resolves inside one, so backticks stay there. The em dash rule has no exemption; it is about prose in any markup. The doubled em dash is the zh-TW 破折號 and is data in this tree, not punctuation. The checker leaves it alone, along with one inside quotes. Chinese in a comment is not only allowed, it is often the only honest way to say what a rule is about: `// 聯繫 is contact-copy in zh-TW and a verb in zh-CN`. Use it where the term is the subject. Do not use it for prose that has an English form, and keep user-facing strings, identifiers and file names English. ## Comments Brevity is part of correctness, but the bar is rationale rather than length: this tree carries long comments where the reasoning is long, and the rule is that every line says something the code cannot. Delete anything restating the statement below it. - Bad: `let end = start + len; // add the length` - Good: `let end = start + len; // byte offsets, mapped back through NFC above, so this indexes the original text and not the normalized copy` Comment width is settled by `commentflow` through `scripts/indent.sh`, so do not hand-wrap to a column and do not fight the result; run `make indent`. Never point a comment, a doc comment or a `docs/` page at `TODO.md`. It is untracked and per-developer, so the reference dangles for everyone else. ## Working docs at the repo root `TODO.md`, `DONE.md` and `CLAUDE.md` are excluded through `.git/info/exclude`, not through `.gitignore`, because the exclusion is one person's habit and `.gitignore` would push it onto everybody. Never `git add`, stage, commit or delete them, and never assume a clone has them. Reports and analyses stay out of the tree the same way: a scratch directory, not a new tracked file. A finished TODO item moves to `DONE.md` rather than being deleted. ## Deleting a surface A flag, subcommand or helper that turns out to be redundant gets deleted, along with its call sites in the Makefile, the scripts, the README, `docs/` and the tests. It does not become an alias and it does not get a deprecation warning. "Never break userspace" here means the observable contract: the MCP tool schema in `docs/mcp.md`, the CLI exit codes, the SARIF and JSON output shapes, and the golden fixtures under `tests/`. The convenience surface is not that contract. ## Pull requests and review replies The commit body carries what and why. A review thread carries a correction, a measurement, or nothing: no pasted agent walkthroughs, no severity tables, no re-summarizing a diff git already shows. ## Layout ```text src/engine/ Scanner passes, normalization, s2t conversion, scoring src/rules/ Rule store, ruleset schema, overrides, judgment cache src/cli/ Argument parsing, file discovery, output rendering src/mcp/ MCP server, stdio transport, tool types, sampling assets/ ruleset.json, the source of truth for vocabulary rules scripts/ Table generator, ruleset checker, gate and hook scripts extension/ Browser extension over the browser-wasm build of the library tests/ Integration suites, corpora and fixtures tests/unit/ Unit test bodies, mirroring the module path they belong to docs/ Internals, rule schema, CLI and MCP references ``` `src/engine/s2t_data.rs` is generated and gitignored. See zhtw-verify for what regenerates it, and zhtw-rules for how a vocabulary rule is added. ## Test code does not live in src No test bodies under `src/`. A module that has unit tests declares them and points at the file: ```rust #[cfg(test)] #[path = "../../tests/unit/engine/excluded/tests.rs"] mod tests; ``` The file lives at `tests/unit/` plus the module path plus the module name, so `src/engine/excluded.rs` puts its `tests` module in `tests/unit/engine/excluded/tests.rs` and `src/engine/scan/mod.rs` puts its in `tests/unit/engine/scan/tests.rs`. The relative path in the attribute is counted from the directory holding the source file, not from the repository root. They stay unit tests, which is the point: they keep private access, they compile into the same test binary, and no internal item has to become `pub` to be reachable. Making an internal `pub` so a test in `tests/*.rs` can see it is the thing this arrangement exists to avoid. What legitimately remains in `src/` is not test bodies: a `#[cfg(test)]` helper on a production type, such as `Trie::get_freq` in `src/engine/segment.rs` or `Scanner::force_bytewise` in `src/engine/scan/mod.rs`, is an affordance the type offers its tests and belongs with the type. A test-only free function is test code and goes to `tests/unit/`, which is where the nine legacy grammar scanners sit as `tests/unit/engine/scan/grammar/legacy.rs`.