Capsem Just discipline

The Justfile is a product interface, not a script drawer. Its public surface is exactly the allowlist in config/public-surface.toml; the contract test derives the live recipe list and fails on additions, removals, renames, or count drift. A new public recipe requires explicit user/product approval and an intentional allowlist update in the same change.

Approved public commands

just --summary must print exactly the names in [just].approved and nothing else. The count is not repeated here on purpose: this line used to say "those 13 names", which was wrong the moment the surface legitimately grew, and a number restated away from its source is a number that goes stale silently. config/public-surface.toml is the authority; the contract test compares the live recipe list against it.

The Python system replaced shell orchestration

Treat the Justfile as a stable user interface, not as the implementation of a command. For focus-test, release-binaries, and release-assets, one recipe line crosses one exact argv boundary into capsem-gate; install prints its hands-on-only warning before crossing the same boundary. From there:

The old system expressed orchestration through shell bodies, Just dependencies, textual order, nested recipes, ambient environment reads, and ad hoc cleanup. Do not use remaining private recipes as templates for new logic. Move each decision into the Python graph, where dry-run, graph inspection, run logging, locking, teardown, and contract tests see it.

A plan action must never invoke just or another capsem-gate command. Compose the other command's fragment instead. The machine lock is not reentrant, so a nested gate waits for the lock held by its own parent. Likewise, do not split a release with an operator-authored receipt. The complete local test owns one process, lock, workspace, plan, and runner journal. Release commands do not consume it; each hosted lane performs its own release qualification.

Read /dev-gate before changing Python orchestration and /release-process before changing either release plan.

What a recipe may contain

A recipe is a dispatch or a single command. Nothing else, and this is checked rather than advised:

• no shell body (no #!/bin/bash) -- build_system/tests/gate/test_gate_boundary.py
• at most five executable lines
• no if, for, while, case, until or trap

The old justfile carried roughly 2070 lines of inline bash across thirty-five recipes, none of it reachable by a test, so every defect in it was found by running the forty-minute gate. The ratchet is what matters: do not add shell orchestration back. Logic lives in build_system/builder/gate/; see /dev-gate for how to add or change a command.

The one exception is a single command with no branching -- cargo build, cd web/app && pnpm run dev -- where routing through Python would add a uv startup and, for an interactive dev server, break TTY and signal handling, in exchange for no decision made.

What does not belong in Just

• fast-test is exactly the incomplete test-fast module. It may not bundle compiled, VM, install, or release work.
• focus-test aliases an existing owning gate command; it must not copy or compose a second test graph. The one addition is the shared source guards (testmodules.source_guards: Ruff, both Ty passes, collection, Citadel), which every group runs before its own first step. focus-test release-system aliases the source-only release-contract owner; package rehearsal and installed-product proof belong to qualification. Neither feedback command is release authority.
• No generic or combined release recipe. Each of the two approved release commands refuses a source without a passing just test (same commit, or one with the identical tree), then dispatches its hosted lane, which still qualifies what it publishes; the two workflows share the per-channel lock.
• No dependency-update, fixture-update, audit-only, coverage-only, cleanup, session-SQL, or extra package-install convenience recipes. Call the owning script/tool directly.
• No separate UI aliases. Use just dev <surface> or just build.
• No public build primitives for kernel, rootfs, Docker images, architectures, or package rails.
• No public continuation recipe. Exact-commit just test derives a partial frontier only from its archived event graph and retained full-SHA prefix; working-tree diagnostic continuation is not qualification. Both release commands refuse continuation flags.

Private underscore recipes may exist only as dependencies of the approved commands or as narrow CI primitives. Specialized skills and workflows may name those internals, but general developer guidance must not present them as public commands. Prefer a tested script when orchestration has state, branching, reporting, cleanup, or resource ownership.

Canonical testing

just test owns the complete graph:

• fail-fast bootstrap and clean install-harness proof;
• audits, lint, frontend, Rust and Python coverage;
• both architecture VM runtime asset lanes and real VM boot;
• four-VM parallel integration;
• Linux parity and both .deb architectures;
• host package SBOM;
• Linux systemd install plus channel glow-up;
• on macOS, an unsigned local .pkg install in Tart, ad-hoc signature checks on the installed executable payload, and physical Apple VZ boot from that exact package.

Release CI calls the checked-in _test-fast, _test-static, _test-artifacts, _test-functional, _test-glowup, and _test-release-contracts modules. _test-fast is also the first phase of just test and just fast-test; it owns YAML/source syntax, source contracts, Clippy, Python and JavaScript checks, and every locked-ecosystem vulnerability audit. Callers must reuse it whole rather than duplicating a subset. Binary CI builds packages and pulls the runtime; runtime CI builds the runtime and pulls packages. Both retain complete functional and glow-up proof before activation. Do not fork or approximate this graph in another public recipe. All checked-in automation enters through the same two public release recipes; it must not call their scripts or workflows directly. Local verification must not import, unlock, or use Apple Developer certificates. Developer ID package signing, notarization, and stapling belong only to the tagged publication workflow.

Public-surface gate

Run:

uv run --project build_system --frozen python build_system/scripts/audit/check_public_surface.py
uv run --project build_system --frozen python -m pytest -c build_system/pyproject.toml --rootdir . tests/test_public_surface_contract.py

The gate also locks the Capsem CLI command tree and service HTTP method/path table. Review config/public-surface.toml as an API approval ledger, never as a snapshot to refresh automatically.