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🛡️ DocGuard

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The enforcement layer for Spec-Driven Development. Validate. Score. Enforce. Ship documentation that AI agents can actually use.

CI npm npm downloads PyPI License: MIT Node.js Runtime deps Spec Kit Extension Glama MCP Registry


✨ See what DocGuard catches in 30 seconds — no install, no setup:

npx docguard-cli demo

Runs against a baked-in sample project with intentional drift and shows you the findings + a clear path to fixing them.

DocGuard demo


Table of Contents


Related MCP server: EasyPeasyMCP

What is DocGuard?

DocGuard enforces Canonical-Driven Development (CDD) — a methodology where documentation is the source of truth, not an afterthought. AI writes the docs, DocGuard validates them.

Traditional Development

Canonical-Driven Development

Code first, docs maybe

Docs first, code conforms

Docs rot silently

Drift is tracked and enforced

Docs are optional

Docs are required and validated

One AI agent, one context

Any agent, shared context via canonical docs

DocGuard is an official GitHub Spec Kit community extension. It validates the artifacts that Spec Kit creates, ensuring your specs stay high-quality throughout the development lifecycle.

📖 Philosophy · 📋 CDD Standard · ⚖️ Comparisons · 🔬 Validation · 🗺️ Roadmap

Architecture

graph TD
    CLI["CLI Entry<br/>docguard.mjs"] --> Commands["Commands (20)"]
    Commands --> guard["guard"]
    Commands --> generate["generate"]
    Commands --> score["score"]
    Commands --> diagnose["diagnose"]
    Commands --> setup["setup wizard"]
    Commands --> other["diff · init · fix · trace · impact · sync<br/>explain · memory · upgrade · agents · hooks · badge · ci · watch"]

    guard --> Validators["Validators (27)"]
    generate --> Scanners["Scanners (4)<br/>routes · schemas · doc-tools · speckit"]
    score --> Scoring["Weighted Scoring<br/>8 categories"]
    diagnose --> Validators
    diagnose --> AIPrompts["AI-Ready<br/>Fix Prompts"]

    Validators --> Output["Output"]
    Scanners --> Output
    Scoring --> Output
    Output --> Terminal["Terminal"]
    Output --> JSON["JSON"]
    Output --> Badge["Badge"]

    style CLI fill:#2d5016,color:#fff
    style Validators fill:#1a3a5c,color:#fff
    style Scanners fill:#1a3a5c,color:#fff
    style Output fill:#5c3a1a,color:#fff

Distribution: Node.js core (npm) · Python wrapper (PyPI) · GitHub Action (action.yml) · Spec Kit Extension (ZIP)


Why DocGuard?

Documentation that drifts from code is worse than no documentation — it confidently misleads humans and AI agents alike. DocGuard treats your canonical docs as an enforced contract: deterministic validators diff what the docs claim against what the code does, on every commit, with no LLM required. The full thesis (and the research behind it) lives in PHILOSOPHY.md; recent feature highlights moved below.

The field data backs the enforcement-over-instructions bet: an ETH Zurich study across 138 repos / 5,694 agent PRs found the most popular style of agent-instruction file hurts agent performance, and practitioners keep converging on the same lesson — written rules are routinely ignored; programmatic checks are what agents (and humans) actually respect. That is exactly the layer DocGuard provides: not another instructions file, but the validator suite that makes the instructions and docs verifiably true.


⚡ Quick Start

Package naming: this repo is raccioly/docguard; the published package is docguard-cli on both npm and PyPI; the installed command is docguard. Same project — the -cli suffix is just the registry name. The package runs no install scripts, so npm i -g docguard-cli --ignore-scripts is equivalent.

Node.js (npm)

# No install needed — run directly
npx docguard-cli diagnose

# Or install globally
npm i -g docguard-cli
docguard diagnose

Python (PyPI)

pip install docguard-cli
docguard diagnose

Note: The Python package is a thin wrapper that delegates to npx. Node.js 18+ is required on the system.

More ways to integrate

  • pre-commit — changed-only guard on every commit:

    repos:
      - repo: https://github.com/raccioly/docguard
        rev: v0.29.0
        hooks: [{ id: docguard-guard }]   # docguard-guard-full for pre-push
  • MCP (Claude, Cursor, any MCP client) — claude mcp add docguard -- npx -y docguard-cli mcp; 5 read-only tools (guard, score, explain, verify-claims, diagnose). Registry manifest ships in-repo (server.json, Smithery-ready).

  • GitLab CI — component staged at templates/ci/gitlab-component.yml (guard/score/ci job with a SARIF artifact).

  • Homebrewbrew install raccioly/tap/docguard (formula in packaging/homebrew/).

Core Workflow

# 1. Initialize docs for your project
npx docguard-cli init

# 2. Or reverse-engineer docs from existing code
npx docguard-cli generate

# 3. AI diagnoses issues and generates fix prompts
npx docguard-cli diagnose

# 4. Validate — use as CI gate
npx docguard-cli guard

# 5. Check maturity score
npx docguard-cli score

The AI Loop

diagnose  →  AI reads prompts  →  AI fixes docs  →  guard verifies
   ↑                                                       ↓
   └───────────────── issues found? ←──────────────────────┘

diagnose is the primary command. It runs all validators, maps every failure to an AI-actionable fix prompt, and outputs a remediation plan. Your AI agent runs it, fixes the docs, and runs guard to verify.

Mechanical vs. agent fixes

DocGuard splits drift into two kinds and is explicit about which is which:

Kind

Example

How it's fixed

Mechanical (deterministic)

An endpoint documented in API-REFERENCE.md that the OpenAPI spec confirms is gone

docguard fix --write deletes the row + detail block itself — no AI

Agent (needs judgment)

Rewriting an X-Ray prose section as CloudWatch; writing a new endpoint's request/response

Routed to an AI agent via diagnose / fix --doc prompts

docguard fix --write only touches docs marked <!-- docguard:generated true --> (override with --force), is idempotent, and prints exactly what changed. It never rewrites prose — that stays with the agent.

Hands-off loop (set and forget)

guard ──▶ fix --write (mechanical, auto) ──▶ guard ──▶ diagnose (agent prompts for the rest)
  • CI / pre-commit: docguard hooks --type pre-commit --auto-fix installs a hook that applies mechanical fixes, re-stages the docs, then runs guard; anything left is surfaced as agent prompts.

  • Agent-driven: docguard diagnose --auto scaffolds missing docs and applies mechanical fixes, then emits prompts for the content rewrites that remain.

  • JSON for automation: guard/diagnose --format json include a mechanicalFixes array and tag each issue mechanical vs agent, so an agent can apply or delegate precisely.


🌱 Spec Kit Integration

DocGuard is a community extension for GitHub's Spec Kit framework. While Spec Kit focuses on creating specifications (via AI slash commands like /speckit.specify and /speckit.plan), DocGuard focuses on validating their quality.

How They Work Together

┌─────────────────┐          ┌──────────────────┐
│    Spec Kit      │          │    DocGuard       │
│                  │          │                   │
│  /speckit.specify│ ──────→  │  docguard guard   │
│  Creates specs   │          │  Validates specs  │
│  (AI-driven)     │          │  (automated)      │
└─────────────────┘          └──────────────────┘

Phase

Tool

What happens

1. Initialize

specify init

Creates .specify/ directory and templates

2. Write specs

/speckit.specify

AI creates spec.md with FR-IDs, user stories

3. Validate

docguard guard

Checks spec quality (mandatory sections, FR/SC IDs)

4. Plan

/speckit.plan

AI creates plan.md with technical context

5. Validate

docguard guard

Checks plan quality (sections, structure)

6. Tasks

/speckit.tasks

AI creates tasks.md with phased breakdown

7. Validate

docguard guard

Checks task quality (phases, T-IDs)

8. Implement

/speckit.implement

AI writes code

9. Enforce

docguard guard

Final quality gate — CI/CD

What DocGuard Validates in Spec Kit Projects

  • spec.md — Mandatory sections (User Scenarios, Requirements, Success Criteria), FR-xxx IDs, SC-xxx IDs

  • plan.md — Summary, Technical Context, Project Structure sections

  • tasks.md — Phased task breakdown (Phase 1, 2, 3+), T-xxx task IDs

  • constitution.md — Detected at .specify/memory/constitution.md or project root

  • Requirement traceability — FR, SC, NFR, US, AC, UC, SYS, ARCH, MOD, T IDs

Installing as a Spec Kit Extension

specify extension add docguard

This installs DocGuard's slash commands (/docguard.init, /docguard.guard, /docguard.review, /docguard.fix, /docguard.update) into your AI agent's command palette.


Usage

DocGuard ships 20 commands (the "Daily 5" + 15 situational tools, including the zero-install demo, the mcp server, and the ci pipeline gate). Six additional one-shot scaffolders are accessed via docguard init --with <name>. Seven v0.19 commands continue to work as deprecation aliases through v0.20.x — see MIGRATION-v0.20.md.

The Daily 5 — what you'll reach for 95% of the time:

Command

What It Does

init

Bootstrap a project (--wizard for interactive · --with <name> for scaffolders)

guard

Validate against canonical docs — 27 validators

diff

Show gaps between docs and code (--since <ref> for impact mode)

sync

Refresh code-truth doc sections — keeps memory always up to date

score

CDD maturity score (0-100; --diff for delta between refs)

Tools (situational, but day-to-day useful):

Command

Purpose

demo

Zero-install showcase — runs guard against a baked-in drifting fixture (npx docguard-cli demo)

diagnose

AI orchestrator — guard → emit fix prompts in one command

fix

Generate AI fix instructions for specific docs (--doc <name> --format prompt)

fix --write

Apply deterministic fixes (no AI — version bumps, counts, anchors, sections)

fix --history

Audit log of every mechanical fix applied (from .docguard/fixed.json)

generate

Reverse-engineer docs from existing codebase (--plan for AI scan) — includes auto-generated Mermaid ER diagrams from your detected schemas (Prisma/Drizzle/TypeORM/Sequelize/Django/Rails) in DATA-MODEL.md

agent

One-shot agent task graph — ordered, pre-filled code-truth, per-task verify (--format json)

explain <warning|CODE>

Paste any warning — or a finding code like SEC001 — to get the validator's docstring, fix path, and how to suppress

verify --semantic

Extract documented numbers/limits/enums (retention days, rate limits, GSI/role counts, status enums) as a task list for an agent to check against code — the semantic-drift class regex/AST can't see

verify --instructions

Audit AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md themselves for drift: duplicate rules, never-vs-always contradictions, stale file pointers, unknown commands — plus clustered rule pairs as agent judgment tasks

feedback

Report likely false positives back to DocGuard — local-first record + a 1-click prefilled, redacted GitHub issue (zero typing)

mcp

MCP server — exposes guard/score/explain/verify/report/diagnose as native tools for Claude, Cursor, and any MCP client. Stdio: claude mcp add docguard -- npx docguard-cli mcp. Team-shared HTTP: docguard mcp --transport http --port 8585 (loopback by default; non-loopback binds require --api-key)

report

Compliance-evidence bundle for audits — guard verdict + CDD score + ALCOA+ attributes + fix history, stamped with git commit and a tamper-evident sha256 integrity hash (--format json, --out <file>). Evidence, not a gate: always exits 0

ci

Pipeline gate: guard + score in one command — never scaffolds or touches source; its only write is its own .docguard/history.jsonl (opt out: --no-history). --threshold <n> fails below a score, --fail-on-warning for strict mode, --format json for parsers

score --trend

Score trajectory from recorded ci runs — sparkline, delta, and the last 10 runs with commit stamps

memory

Per-domain accuracy headline (endpoints / entities / env / tech)

memory --diff

Drill into which specific claims don't match code

memory --pack

Write .docguard/context-pack.md — compact, code-truth-stamped session-start context for AI agents

score --diff

Drill into which checks pulled each category down

trace / trace --reverse <file>

Requirements traceability — forward AND reverse

trace --features

Per-feature spec-adherence scores (requirement coverage, task completion, task evidence, artifacts) — worst-first with fix hints

upgrade [--apply] [--pr]

Check + migrate .docguard.json schema; --pr opens a PR

watch

Live mode: re-run guard on file changes

init --with <name> scaffolders — picked at init time:

Scaffolder

What It Generates

agents

AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, .cursor/rules/, .github/copilot-instructions.md

hooks

Git pre-commit / pre-push hooks

ci

GitHub Actions / pipeline YAML

badge

Shields.io score badges for README

llms

llms.txt (AI-friendly summary)

publish

External doc-site config (Mintlify) — experimental

Run them solo (docguard init --with hooks) or stacked (docguard init --with agents,hooks,badge,ci).

Deprecation aliasessetup · agents · hooks · ci · badge · llms · publish · impact keep working in v0.20.x with a yellow stderr warning. audit → guard is permanent (no warning). See MIGRATION-v0.20.md.

CLI Flags

Flag

Description

Commands

--dir <path>

Project directory (default: .)

All

--verbose

Show detailed output

All

--quiet / -q

Suppress banner — for hooks, CI loops, scripts

All

--format json

Machine-readable output (clean JSON, no ANSI bleed)

guard, score, diff, trace, diagnose, memory, impact, explain

--format sarif

SARIF 2.1.0 output — findings as rules/results for GitHub Code Scanning and SARIF dashboards

guard

--format junit

JUnit XML output — one testcase per validator, for GitLab CI (artifacts:reports:junit), Jenkins, Azure DevOps, CircleCI

guard

--update-baseline

Adopt DocGuard on a legacy repo without a red day one: freeze today's findings into a committed .docguard.baseline.json; guard/ci then gate only NEW drift. Suppression is always visible ("N pre-existing finding(s) suppressed"), and --no-baseline shows the full picture

guard

--full

Generate llms-full.txt (full doc bodies inlined) instead of the llms.txt link index

llms

--pack

Write .docguard/context-pack.md — agent session-start context

memory

--sync

Regenerate the agent-file family (CLAUDE.md, Copilot, Cursor, …) from AGENTS.md; hash-marked, never touches hand-written files without --force

agents

--check

CI gate for the synced agent-file family — exit 2 when a variant is stale

agents

--force

Overwrite existing files (creates .bak backups)

generate, agents, init

--force-redo

Bypass ping-pong suppression in .docguard/fixed.json

fix --write

--profile <name>

Starter / standard / enterprise

init

--no-spec-kit

Skip auto-init of .specify/ / .agent/ scaffolding

init

--changed-only [--since <ref>]

Pre-commit lite mode (5 fast validators on changed files only)

guard

--timings

Per-validator wall-time profile (slowest first)

guard

--show-failing

Show warnings/errors even when status is PASS

guard

--pin

Record running CLI version into .docguard.json (reproducibility)

guard

--diff

Per-category drill-down

score, memory

--check-only

Exit 1 if behind (for CI)

upgrade

--apply

Actually run the migration

upgrade

--pr

Open a PR with the migration

upgrade

--reverse <file>

Reverse traceability (code → docs)

trace

--no-indirect

Skip the reverse-import-graph analysis (docs about modules that import a changed file)

impact, diff --since

--prs

Open-PR doc-conflict analysis — two PRs impacting the same canonical doc = merge-order risk (needs the gh CLI)

impact

--transport http --port --host --api-key --path

Serve MCP over Streamable HTTP instead of stdio (team-shared server; loopback-only unless an api-key is set)

mcp

--history

Show fix audit log

fix

Example Output

$ npx docguard-cli generate

🔮 DocGuard Generate — my-project
   Scanning codebase to generate canonical documentation...

  Detected Stack:
    language: TypeScript ^5.0
    framework: Next.js ^14.0
    database: PostgreSQL
    orm: Drizzle 0.33
    testing: Vitest
    hosting: AWS Amplify

  ✅ ARCHITECTURE.md (4 components, 6 tech)
  ✅ DATA-MODEL.md (12 entities detected)
  ✅ ENVIRONMENT.md (18 env vars detected)
  ✅ TEST-SPEC.md (45 tests, 8/10 services mapped)
  ✅ SECURITY.md (auth: NextAuth.js)
  ✅ REQUIREMENTS.md (spec-kit aligned)
  ✅ AGENTS.md
  ✅ CHANGELOG.md
  ✅ DRIFT-LOG.md

  Generated: 9  Skipped: 0

🔍 Validators

DocGuard runs 27 automated validators on every guard check. Every one is language-aware as of v0.16 — patterns for Python (test_*.py), Rust (tests/*.rs), Go (*_test.go), Java (*Test.java), Ruby (*_spec.rb), PHP, and JS/TS all match.

#

Validator

What It Checks

Default

1

Structure

Required CDD files exist

✅ On

2

Doc Sections

Canonical docs have required sections (or N/A markers)

✅ On

3

Docs-Sync

Routes/services referenced in docs + OpenAPI cross-check

✅ On

4

Drift-Comments

// DRIFT: comments logged in DRIFT-LOG.md (skips test files by default)

✅ On

5

Changelog

CHANGELOG.md has [Unreleased] section

✅ On

6

Test-Spec

Tests exist per TEST-SPEC.md rules

✅ On

7

Environment

Env vars documented, .env.example exists

✅ On

8

Security

No hardcoded secrets in source code

✅ On

9

Architecture

Imports follow layer boundaries (honors config.ignore)

✅ On

10

Freshness

Docs not stale relative to code changes (rename-aware via git log --follow)

✅ On

11

Traceability

Requirement IDs (FR, SC, NFR, US, AC, T) trace to tests

✅ On

12

Docs-Diff

Code artifacts match documented entities

✅ On

13

API-Surface

API-REFERENCE.md endpoints match real routes (OpenAPI cross-check)

✅ On

14

Metadata-Sync

Version refs consistent across docs

✅ On

15

Docs-Coverage

Code features referenced in documentation

✅ On

16

Doc-Quality

Writing quality (readability, passive voice, atomicity, IEEE 830)

✅ On

17

TODO-Tracking

Untracked TODOs/FIXMEs and skipped tests (skips test files by default)

✅ On

18

Schema-Sync

Database models documented in DATA-MODEL.md

✅ On

19

Spec-Kit

Spec quality validation (FR-IDs, mandatory sections, phased tasks)

✅ On

20

Cross-Reference

Internal markdown links + anchors resolve (with "did you mean?" hints); Obsidian wikilinks validated when the repo uses them as file links (.obsidian present or a target resolves)

✅ On

21

Generated-Staleness

source=code sections match scanner output; status: draft doc age

✅ On

22

Canonical-Sync

DocGuard's own README count claims match code-truth (DocGuard repo only — N/A elsewhere)

✅ On

23

Metrics-Consistency

Hardcoded numbers match actual counts

✅ On

24

Surface-Sync

Item-level enumerable drift — names in doc tables/lists (commands, checks, etc.) match code-truth (opt-in via surfaceSync.surfaces; N/A unless configured)

✅ On

25

Diff-Suspicion

Change-driven: a doc/agent-instruction file that references code changed since the ref AND shares removed domain symbols is flagged for review (arXiv 2010.01625, F1 74.7)

✅ On

26

Reference-Existence

Two-revision check: a backticked code symbol present when the doc was last updated but gone at HEAD is flagged as outdated (arXiv 2212.01479)

✅ On

27

API-Doc-Smells

Bloated (≥300 words) / Lazy (≤6 prose words) API documentation units, keyed on signature-headed sections (F1 0.90/0.95)

✅ On

Per-validator controls (in .docguard.json):

{
  "validators": {
    "test-spec": false,                 // disable (kebab-case OR camelCase both accepted)
    "freshness": true
  },
  "severity": {
    "todoTracking": "high",             // warnings fail CI
    "freshness": "low"                  // warnings ignored for exit code
  }
}

📄 Templates

DocGuard ships 18 professional templates with metadata, badges, and revision history:

Template

Type

Purpose

ARCHITECTURE.md

Canonical

System design, components, layer boundaries

DATA-MODEL.md

Canonical

Schemas, entities, relationships

SECURITY.md

Canonical

Auth, permissions, secrets management

TEST-SPEC.md

Canonical

Test strategy, coverage requirements

ENVIRONMENT.md

Canonical

Environment variables, deployment config

REQUIREMENTS.md

Canonical

Spec-kit aligned FR/SC IDs, user stories

DEPLOYMENT.md

Canonical

Infrastructure, CI/CD, DNS

ADR.md

Canonical

Architecture Decision Records

ROADMAP.md

Canonical

Project phases, feature tracking

KNOWN-GOTCHAS.md

Implementation

Symptom → gotcha → fix entries

TROUBLESHOOTING.md

Implementation

Error diagnosis guides

RUNBOOKS.md

Implementation

Operational procedures

VENDOR-BUGS.md

Implementation

Third-party issue tracker

CURRENT-STATE.md

Implementation

Deployment status, tech debt

AGENTS.md

Agent

AI agent behavior rules

CHANGELOG.md

Tracking

Change log

DRIFT-LOG.md

Tracking

Deviation tracking

llms.txt

Generated

AI-friendly project summary (llmstxt.org)


🤖 AI Agent Support

One-click MCP install

Add to Cursor Install in VS Code

  • Claude Code: claude mcp add docguard -- npx docguard-cli mcp

  • Claude Desktop: download docguard-v<version>.mcpb from the latest release and drag it into Settings → Extensions — you'll be asked which project folder to analyze. No npm, no JSON editing.

  • Anything MCP: DocGuard is a verified namespace on the official MCP registry (io.github.raccioly/docguard).

DocGuard works with every major AI coding agent. All canonical docs are plain markdown — no vendor lock-in.

Agent

Compatibility

Auto-Generate Config

Google Antigravity

docguard agents --agent antigravity

Claude Code

docguard agents --agent claude

GitHub Copilot

docguard agents --agent copilot

Cursor

docguard agents --agent cursor

Windsurf

docguard agents --agent windsurf

Cline

docguard agents --agent cline

Google Gemini CLI

docguard agents --agent gemini

Kiro (AWS)

Always-on nudge hook (Claude Code)

docguard hooks --claude            # install   (remove: docguard hooks --claude --remove)

Registers a PostToolUse hook in the project's .claude/settings.json. After the agent edits a canonical doc it is nudged to run docguard guard --changed-only; after it edits a code file the docs reference, it is nudged toward docguard impact. Merge-safe (only DocGuard's own entry is ever added/removed), throttled to one nudge per file per 30 minutes, and the hook runtime can never break a session (errors are silent by contract). Explicit opt-in — init never installs it for you.


⚡ Slash Commands

DocGuard provides AI agent slash commands for integrated workflows. Installed automatically via docguard init or specify extension add docguard:

Command

What It Does

/docguard.init

Initialize Canonical-Driven Development in a new or existing project

/docguard.guard

Run quality validation — check all 27 validators

/docguard.review

Analyze doc quality and suggest improvements

/docguard.fix

Generate targeted fix prompts for specific issues

/docguard.update

Update canonical docs after code changes — detect drift and sync documentation

These commands are installed into your AI agent's command directory:

.github/commands/     → GitHub Copilot
.cursor/rules/        → Cursor
.gemini/commands/     → Google Gemini
.claude/commands/     → Claude Code
.agents/workflows/    → Antigravity

🧠 AI Skills (Enterprise)

Beyond slash commands, DocGuard provides 4 enterprise-grade AI skills — deep behavior protocols that tell AI agents not just what to run, but how to think, validate, and iterate. Skills are modeled after Spec Kit's skill architecture.

Skill

Lines

What It Does

docguard-guard

155

6-step quality gate with severity triage (CRITICAL→LOW), structured reporting, remediation

docguard-fix

195

7-step research workflow with per-document codebase research and 3-iteration validation loops

docguard-review

170

Read-only semantic cross-document analysis with 6 analysis passes and quality scoring

docguard-score

165

CDD maturity assessment with ROI-based improvement roadmap and grade progression

Workflow Hooks

DocGuard integrates into the spec-kit workflow as an automated quality gate:

Hook

When

Behavior

after_implement

After /speckit.implement

Mandatory — always runs DocGuard guard

before_tasks

Before /speckit.tasks

Optional — reviews doc consistency

after_tasks

After /speckit.tasks

Optional — shows CDD maturity score

Orchestration Scripts

For advanced users and CI/CD pipelines, DocGuard includes bash scripts with --json output:

Script

Purpose

docguard-check-docs.sh

Discover project docs, return JSON inventory with metadata

docguard-suggest-fix.sh

Run guard, parse results, output prioritized fixes

docguard-init-doc.sh

Initialize canonical doc with metadata header


📁 Examples

Three real-world projects to see DocGuard in action:

Example

Scenario

What You'll See

01-express-api

Node.js API with zero docs

Cold-start: generate → instant coverage

02-python-flask

Python app with drifted docs

Drift detection: catch when docs lie

03-spec-kit-project

Full CDD + Spec Kit

Gold standard: what maturity looks like

See examples/README.md for step-by-step instructions.


🧪 Testing

Test Suite

npm test    # 33 tests across 18 describe blocks

Covers all 15 CLI commands, project type detection, compliance profiles, JSON output format, and help completeness.

CI Matrix

Node.js

OS

Status

18

ubuntu-latest

20

ubuntu-latest

22

ubuntu-latest

Self-Validation (Dogfooding)

DocGuard runs its own guard, score, diff, diagnose, and badge commands against itself in CI — ensuring the tool passes its own checks.


🏢 Enterprise Adoption

Everything runs local or in your CI — no SaaS, no data leaving your infra. The pieces that matter at company scale:

Need

DocGuard answer

Adopt on a legacy repo without a red pipeline on day one

guard --update-baseline freezes existing findings into a committed .docguard.baseline.json; only NEW drift gates from then on (suppression always visible)

Audit trail for compliance reviews

docguard report — commit-stamped evidence bundle (guard verdict, findings by code, CDD score, ALCOA+ data-integrity attributes, fix history) with a tamper-evident sha256 integrity hash

Every CI system, not just GitHub

guard --format sarif (GitHub Code Scanning) · --format junit (GitLab, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, CircleCI) · --format json (anything else)

Trajectory, not snapshots

docguard ci records every run to .docguard/history.jsonl; score --trend shows the sparkline + delta

AI agents on the team

MCP server (stdio or team-shared HTTP) exposes guard/score/explain/verify/report/diagnose as read-only tools; agents --sync keeps the whole agent-file family drift-proof

Data-integrity framing auditors know

ALCOA+ scoring (FDA 21 CFR Part 11 / EMA Annex 11 vocabulary) built into score and report

⚙️ CI/CD Integration

Full recipes: see docs-canonical/CI-RECIPES.md for guard, auto-fix (commits mechanical fixes back to PRs), nightly sync, score-on-PR, and pre-commit configs.

GitHub Actions — Guard (most common)

name: DocGuard Guard
on: [pull_request, push]
permissions: { pull-requests: write }   # for the sticky PR comment (optional)
jobs:
  docguard:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with: { fetch-depth: 0 }
      - uses: raccioly/docguard@v0.12.0
        with:
          command: guard

On pull requests, guard mode also gives inline PR feedback (both default on):

Input

Default

Description

annotations

true

Inline ::error/::warning annotations on the PR diff, one per guard finding (capped at 50; a final notice reports how many were elided)

pr-comment

true

Sticky PR comment with the guard verdict, top findings (by code), and which canonical docs the PR's changed files impact (diff --since origin/<base>). Needs permissions: pull-requests: write; degrades to a log warning without it

Both run even when guard fails — that's when the feedback matters. Prefer native code-scanning integration? docguard guard --format sarif uploads straight to GitHub Code Scanning via github/codeql-action/upload-sarif.

GitHub Actions — Auto-Fix (commits mechanical fixes back)

name: DocGuard Auto-Fix
on: { pull_request: { types: [opened, synchronize, reopened] } }
permissions: { contents: write, pull-requests: write }
jobs:
  autofix:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name == github.repository
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          fetch-depth: 0
      - uses: raccioly/docguard@v0.12.0
        with: { command: fix, auto-commit: 'true', comment-on-pr: 'true' }

Pre-commit Hook

npx docguard-cli hooks --type pre-commit

Workflow starters (copy directly)

Two ready-to-use templates ship with the Spec Kit extension and as standalone files:

  • extensions/spec-kit-docguard/templates/github-workflows/docguard-guard.yml — mandatory CI gate

  • extensions/spec-kit-docguard/templates/github-workflows/docguard-autofix.yml — PR auto-fix


✨ What's New

Highlights of the current line (v0.29 → v0.33):

  • Adoption baselineguard --update-baseline freezes a legacy repo's existing findings into a committed .docguard.baseline.json; guard/ci then gate only NEW drift, with suppression always visible. Adopt today, burn down at your own pace.

  • docguard report — commit-stamped compliance-evidence bundle (guard verdict, findings by code, CDD score, ALCOA+ attributes, fix history) with a tamper-evident sha256 integrity hash. Also exposed as the docguard_report MCP tool.

  • Score history + score --trenddocguard ci records every run to .docguard/history.jsonl; the trend view shows the sparkline and delta over time.

  • Three machine formats for guard--format json, --format sarif (GitHub Code Scanning), and --format junit (GitLab, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, CircleCI).

  • MCP server, stdio + team HTTP — guard/score/explain/verify/report/diagnose as read-only agent tools: claude mcp add docguard -- npx docguard-cli mcp.

  • Agent-file family syncagents --sync treats AGENTS.md as canonical and regenerates CLAUDE.md / .cursor/rules / Copilot / Gemini variants with drift-proof source-hash markers.

  • verify --semantic and verify --instructions — extract documented numbers/limits/enums as agent verification tasks; audit the agent-instruction files themselves for contradictions and stale pointers.

  • docguard agent — one-shot ordered task graph with pre-filled code-truth, collapsing ~10 agent round-trips into one call.

See CHANGELOG.md for the full history.


📁 File Structure

your-project/
├── .specify/                        # Spec Kit (if using specify init)
│   ├── specs/
│   │   └── 001-feature/
│   │       ├── spec.md              # Requirements (FR-IDs, user stories)
│   │       ├── plan.md              # Implementation plan
│   │       └── tasks.md             # Task breakdown
│   ├── memory/
│   │   └── constitution.md          # Project principles
│   └── templates/
│
├── docs-canonical/                  # CDD canonical docs (the "blueprint")
│   ├── ARCHITECTURE.md              # System design, components
│   ├── DATA-MODEL.md                # Database schemas
│   ├── SECURITY.md                  # Auth, permissions, secrets
│   ├── TEST-SPEC.md                 # Required tests, coverage
│   ├── ENVIRONMENT.md               # Environment variables
│   └── REQUIREMENTS.md              # Spec-kit aligned FR/SC IDs
│
├── docs-implementation/             # Current state (optional)
│   ├── KNOWN-GOTCHAS.md
│   ├── TROUBLESHOOTING.md
│   ├── RUNBOOKS.md
│   └── CURRENT-STATE.md
│
├── AGENTS.md                        # AI agent behavior rules
├── CHANGELOG.md                     # Change tracking
├── DRIFT-LOG.md                     # Documented deviations
├── llms.txt                         # AI-friendly summary
└── .docguard.json                   # DocGuard configuration

⚙️ Configuration

Create .docguard.json in your project root (auto-generated by docguard init):

{
  "projectName": "my-project",
  "version": "0.4",
  "profile": "standard",
  "projectType": "webapp",
  "validators": {
    "structure": true,
    "docsSync": true,
    "drift": true,
    "changelog": true,
    "testSpec": true,
    "security": true,
    "environment": true,
    "docQuality": true,
    "specKit": true
  }
}

See Configuration Guide for all options.


🔬 Research Credits

DocGuard's quality evaluation and documentation generation patterns are informed by peer-reviewed research from the University of Arizona and the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC), U.S. Department of Defense:

Lead researcher: Martin Manuel Lopez · ORCID 0009-0002-7652-2385

See CONTRIBUTING.md for full citations.


⭐ Star History

Star History Chart


🔒 Privacy & Supply Chain

DocGuard is local-first: no telemetry, no analytics, no phone-home — the full (short) policy is in PRIVACY.md. npm releases are published with provenance attestation, so you can verify each tarball was built by GitHub Actions from this repository.

📄 License

MIT — Free to use, modify, and distribute.


Made with ❤️ by Ricardo Accioly

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