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jbaruch/coding-policy

General-purpose coding policy for Baruch's AI agents

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Overview
Quality
Evals
Security
Files

jbaruch/coding-policy

tessl

Coding policy plugin for Baruch's AI agents. Language-agnostic code quality rules plus Tessl-specific plugin authoring standards — covering commits, testing, error handling, skill structure, and script delegation.

What's New

  • Policy review runs on the OpenAI Codex CLI authenticated by a ChatGPT subscription (no API key) via .github/workflows/review-codex.yml, reviewing every PR against the in-tree rules/*.md; Copilot stays as the complementary code-quality lane
  • 24 rules — 18 always-on, 6 conditional (scoped via applyTo: to the files where the rule's prescriptions actually fire). Breakdown: 10 covering code quality, 7 covering plugin authoring, 1 covering concurrency, 1 covering review discipline, 1 covering reviewer-feedback reading, 1 covering review severity, 1 covering external-repo action scope, 1 covering response communication, 1 covering merge/ship autonomy
  • release skill — structured PR + merge workflow gated on the Codex policy review's blocking findings; Copilot is the complementary code-quality lane and is always advisory
  • install-reviewer skill — enroll a consumer repo in the central fleet policy reviewer (the .github/fleet-review-enabled marker + the Copilot lane); no per-repo workflow or secrets
  • adopt-fork-pr skill — bring a fork PR's branch into the base repo as a same-repo PR the reviewer can run on
  • 0.3.0 added install-reviewer upgrade mode (--override) — refreshes the reviewer artifacts in place instead of requiring a manual git rm-and-rerun
  • Language-agnostic: works with any stack, no Python/JS assumptions

See CHANGELOG.md for full version history.

Installation

tessl install jbaruch/coding-policy

What's Included

CategoryRuleSummary
Gitcommit-conventionsImperative mood, one change per commit, PR hygiene
Gitsync-before-workFetch and sync the local checkout to the remote default before reading, planning, or editing; branch from the fresh default
Testingtesting-standardsOutcome-based, deterministic, no binary fixtures
Errorserror-handlingSpecific exceptions (with outer-boundary process-contract carve-out), actionable messages, structured logging
Depsdependency-managementStdlib-first, pinned versions kept fresh via a renewal mechanism, lock files
Filesfile-hygieneProper .gitignore, no generated files committed
CIci-safetyNever skip tests, never modify CI without asking
Secretsno-secretsNo credentials in code, env vars or secrets manager
Stylecode-formattingUse project's formatter, don't mix style with logic
Typeslanguage-diagnosticsEnable the project's language server; its findings are non-dismissible without cause; gate the headless checker in CI at zero findings
Authoringcontext-artifactsPlugin structure, rule format, review iteration, surface sync, consistency checks
Authoringcontext-writing-styleProse discipline for rules, skills, and READMEs — what to cut, what to keep, structural format. CHANGELOG entries follow looser archive discipline
Authoringrule-frontmatterFrontmatter conventions for rule files — passthrough model, per-agent field map, when to path-scope
Authoringskill-authoringSKILL.md structure, step numbering, typed calls, plugin.json reference
Authoringscript-delegationDeterministic → script, reasoning → LLM, the regex trap
Authoringscript-as-black-boxSkills reference the script's contract (inputs/outputs/exit codes), not its internal logic — thresholds and predicates live in the script
Authoringstateful-artifactsCross-invocation state: schema, owner skill, schema_version, hints-not-authority, migration
Reviewreviewer-feedback-readingA review's state classifies merge-gating, not whether its body must be read; read every reviewer's body before declaring merge-ready, COMMENTED-with-zero-inline included
Reviewreview-severityFindings carry a severity — blocking (correctness, security, contract) gates the merge; advisory (prose, style, Copilot) never does; read all, act by severity, never burn a round on a lone advisory
Concurrencyagent-worktree-isolationMandatory git worktrees for concurrent agent work; cleanup; read-only exception
Disciplineboy-scoutLeave it better than you found it; "pre-existing" is not a valid concept; in-scope cleanups bundle, out-of-scope ones get filed
Scopeexternal-repo-contributionsDefault deny on issues, PRs, comments, reactions, and discussions in repos the operator does not own; explicit permission required per repo and action type
Communicationresponse-clarityShape responses action-first: lead with the command, number steps, show progress, plain errors, one concrete next step, no preamble or closers (exceptions for explanations, destructive actions, debug, ambiguity)
Disciplineship-on-greenGreen gate is the approval — merge, never ask; asking in a costume (flag/confirm/"say go") is deciding not to ship; stakes raise care not permission; three objective exits only — Red / No undo / Murky

Skills

SkillDescription
releasePR creation, Codex (subscription-CLI) policy review + Copilot code-quality review, merge + cleanup workflow
install-reviewerEnroll a consumer repo in the central fleet policy reviewer — scaffold the .github/fleet-review-enabled marker, a thin .github/workflows/review-trigger.yml (fires an immediate PR-time review in coding-policy), and .github/copilot-instructions.md, then open a PR. The coding-policy-fleet-reviewer GitHub App reviews against the jbaruch/coding-policy rules with the Codex CLI on a ChatGPT subscription (no API key). The Codex credential lives only in coding-policy; the consumer sets one stable FLEET_DISPATCH_TOKEN (a narrow PAT). Supports --override for in-place upgrades.
adopt-fork-prClassify a PR by number. Same-repo PRs pass through to the reviewer; fork PRs get adopted into the base repo as a same-repo PR, preserving the contributor's commits.
migrate-to-pluginMigrate a legacy tile.json plugin to the .tessl-plugin/plugin.json form: runs tessl plugin migrate, renames .tileignore, removes the obsolete tile.json, re-lints, then reconciles residual "tile" wording to "plugin" while preserving contract surfaces.

Philosophy

  • Language-agnostic code rules. The code quality rules (commits through formatting) apply to Python, TypeScript, Go, Rust, Java — any language. No framework-specific assumptions.
  • Tessl-specific authoring rules. The Authoring-category rules in the table above are specific to the Tessl plugin workflow. They codify how to build, test, and ship plugins.
  • One concern per rule. Each file covers one topic. Easy to read, easy to reference, easy to override if a project needs an exception.
  • Opinionated but practical. These rules reflect real patterns found across 17+ repositories and the Tessl plugin authoring workflow. They solve problems that actually come up when agents write and ship code.
  • Loaded by default; scoped by intent. Universal rules are alwaysApply: true. Rules whose prescriptions only fire in specific files are alwaysApply: false with applyTo: declaring the scope — the agent's model reads the frontmatter and narrows when to act. See rules/rule-frontmatter.md.
Workspace
jbaruch
Visibility
Public
Created
Last updated
Publish Source
GitHub
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