CLAUDE.md

July 25, 2026 · View on GitHub

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Repo layout (post v1.3.0 pivot)

roadmapsmith shipped as a Node CLI through v0.14.x. v1.3.0 pivoted to a skills-only distribution: the npm package is now a thin shim (install.js) that delegates to skills.sh, and the actual product is the SKILL.md bundle under skills/ and plugins/roadmapsmith/skills/.

  • Current shipping surface — install.js + skills/roadmap-init/SKILL.md + skills/roadmap-update/SKILL.md. Root package.json files: limits the published tarball to those three (plus the plugins/ mirror). Sync between skills/ and plugins/roadmapsmith/skills/ is enforced by scripts/sync-skills.js (called from version and prepublishOnly lifecycle scripts) and .github/workflows/mirror-check.yml.
  • Archived CLI — the pre-pivot Node CLI (parser, generator, validator, sync, tests) lives untouched in legacy/roadmap-skill/. It is not shipped by npm i roadmapsmith anymore; it stays in the repo for reference and manual local use.

Working on the legacy CLI

If you need to touch the archived CLI (rare — bug fix in the SKILL.md prompts is usually the right move), all commands run inside legacy/roadmap-skill/:

cd legacy/roadmap-skill
npm install
npm test                                    # runs all tests via node --test test/*.test.js
node bin/cli.js --help
node bin/cli.js init --dry-run
node bin/cli.js generate --project-root . --dry-run --audit
node bin/cli.js validate --json --project-root ../.. --task <task-id>
node bin/cli.js sync --dry-run --project-root ../..
node bin/cli.js sync --audit --project-root ../..
node bin/cli.js doctor --project-root ../..

Run a single test file:

node --test test/validator.test.js

Test names are passed to filter:

node --test test/validator.test.js --test-name-pattern "passes when code"

Architecture (legacy CLI)

The Architecture / Invariants / Config sections below describe the archived CLI in legacy/roadmap-skill/. All src/, bin/, test/ paths are relative to that directory.

The pipeline is unidirectional:

io.walkFiles → generator.scanProject → model.createRoadmapModel → renderer.renderBody
                                                                          ↓
parser.parseRoadmap ← ROADMAP.md ← parser.upsertManagedBlock ← generator.generateRoadmapDocument
       ↓
validator.validateTasks → sync.applySync → ROADMAP.md (updated)

src/io.js — Filesystem primitives: walkFiles, detectLanguages, detectTestFrameworks, detectWorkspaces. Ignores node_modules, dist, etc.

src/generator/index.js — Orchestrates the full roadmap generation: scans the repo, builds P0/P1/P2 task candidates, merges with existing tasks (preserving checked state), calls the renderer, and wraps output in the managed block. Key entry point: generateRoadmapDocument(options).

src/validator/index.js — Multi-pass evidence scoring. Passes fire in priority order:

  1. Explicit backtick-quoted paths in task text
  2. Symbol name extraction (function/class patterns in text)
  3. Code token matching (threshold scales with token count: 1/2/3 matches required)
  4. Test file matching via import references only (not content)
  5. Artifact presence (README, CHANGELOG, docs/, dist/)
  6. Namespace structural gate — for task IDs with known prefixes (evh2, uxf, cls, etc.), at least one evidence file must match a path predicate for that namespace

GENERIC_TASK_TOKENS (line 18) is the blocklist that prevents common words from polluting evidence signals. Extend it when new false positives are found.

src/parser/index.js — Reads ROADMAP.md, extracts tasks with <!-- rs:task=id --> markers (stable IDs), tracks lineIndex and warningLineIndex for in-place sync. The managed block is bounded by <!-- rs:managed:start --> / <!-- rs:managed:end --> — upsertManagedBlock never touches content outside this region.

src/renderer/ — renderBody(model, profile) dispatches to compact.js or professional.js. The compact profile is the stable default; professional renders a 12-section structured roadmap with Phase→Step→Task hierarchy.

src/sync/index.js — Applies validateTasks results onto ROADMAP.md lines: marks [x] for passing tasks, appends ⚠️ attempted but validation failed: <reason> lines for failing ones. Uses line offsets to handle in-place splice.

src/config.js — Loads roadmap-skill.config.json, merges with defaults, exposes loadPlugins and collectPluginContributions. The __roadmapFileExplicit non-enumerable property tracks whether roadmapFile was explicitly set vs. defaulted (used by resolveRoadmapFile).

src/match.js — Jaccard-similarity task matching (similarityScore, threshold 0.55) for merging existing tasks with regenerated candidates. dedupeTasks resolves conflicts by: checked state wins, then lower priority number wins, then shorter text wins.

Key Invariants

  • checkedById is the only authority for task checked state. Never derive checked state from other metadata in renderers. Every <!-- rs:task=id --> emission must use checkedState(model, id) — hardcoding [ ] silently breaks roundtrip preservation.
  • Task IDs are stable via <!-- rs:task=slug --> markers. The slugification algorithm is locked; changing it breaks roundtrips.
  • ROADMAP.md is excluded from the evidence pool (SELF_REFERENTIAL_FILES) — its task descriptions contain the exact vocabulary being validated and would cause every task to self-validate.
  • TODO detection requires comment prefix (//, #, *) to avoid false positives in non-comment code like TODO|FIXME in regex patterns.
  • Test files are matched by import references only, not by content keyword matching — test descriptions routinely mention future-task vocabulary.
  • Test discovery for npm test is scoped to test/*.test.js. Files under test/fixtures/ must never be run as tests.

Config and File Resolution

The legacy CLI reads roadmap-skill.config.json from legacy/ (moved during the v1.3.0 pivote — was at repo root pre-1.3.0). When running the CLI against this repo, omit --config — auto-discovery finds it. Passing --config with a wrong path silently falls back to defaults.

Config fields northStar, targetUser, problemStatement, etc. are forward-compatible: recognized by the agent skill today, not yet wired into the generator/validator.

Config field moduleMetadata (object keyed by lowercased module/command name) drives Section 6 ("Maturity Path") of the professional profile. Each entry is { state: string, tasks: Array<{ text, priority, id }> }. When a detected module/command name matches an entry, the renderer emits its state line and tasks; otherwise it falls back to generic "Document public API" + "Add test coverage for " tasks. See legacy/roadmap-skill.config.json for a working example.

PostToolUse Hook

.claude/settings.json in this repo registers a Claude-specific PostToolUse hook that runs node .claude/hooks/roadmap-sync.js after every Write/Edit operation. Treat it as a repo-local example, not as a host-agnostic integration contract.

This is a write-time hook, not the same thing as the git pre-commit hook. The write-time path is currently best-effort and depends on the host environment being able to resolve node for the spawned child process; the repo's pre-commit hook uses an absolute Node path and is stricter.

Audit Semantics

sync --audit and /roadmap-audit are read-only: they run validation, print the mismatch summary, and exit with code 2 if checkedWithoutEvidence or readyButUnchecked are non-empty. They never modify ROADMAP.md. The maintain command uses a separate internal path (options.audit) that mutates first and then prints audit output — that is intentional and distinct from the --audit flag contract.

Publishing

Release is fully automated. Two commands:

npm version patch          # or minor / major
git push --follow-tags

What happens under the hood:

  1. npm version bumps package.json.
  2. npm fires the version lifecycle script → scripts/sync-skills.js --fix propagates the new version to the 4 mirrored manifests (.claude-plugin/plugin.json, .codex-plugin/plugin.json, plugins/roadmapsmith/.codex-plugin/plugin.json, skills.json) → git add -A stages them.
  3. npm version creates the commit + tag with all mirrors inside.
  4. git push --follow-tags uploads commit and tag.
  5. .github/workflows/release.yml triggers on package.json change in main, compares local vs. published version, runs npm publish --access public, and creates the GitHub release with auto-generated notes.
  6. On the publish itself, prepublishOnly runs sync-skills.js --check as the last safety net — publish aborts if any mirror is out of sync.

Never run npm publish locally. Never edit a mirrored manifest's version field by hand — the source of truth is package.json and drift will fail CI (.github/workflows/mirror-check.yml) and prepublishOnly.

Lessons Learned

  • source-of-truth discovery en repos con mirrors (v1.3): antes de planear cambios en un repo con multi-mirror (npm+plugin bundle, root skills/+plugins/roadmapsmith/skills/, .agents/+.claude/+.codex/), leer PRIMERO los sync/build scripts (scripts/sync-skills.js, package.json files:, .github/workflows/mirror-check.yml) para identificar cuál path es source y cuáles son mirrors derivados. El CLAUDE.md del repo puede estar stale en paths tras un pivote. Editar el mirror en vez del source → sync automático lo pisa en el próximo release.

  • LLM skill verification: dry-run el SKILL.md nuevo contra un repo real que exhiba el fallo (v1.3): para cambios de SKILL.md (prompts LLM-driven, no código), npm test / check-skills sólo validan sintaxis y sync — no verifican output distinto contra el mismo input problemático. Protocolo post-edit: (1) identificar 1 repo real que reproducía el fallo, (2) actuar como agente ejecutando el skill nuevo step-by-step contra ese repo, (3) generar el reporte estructurado sin modificar el target, (4) confirmar que cada capacidad nueva dispara. Modo full-scan + modo short-circuit son verificaciones distintas.