Every directory of the layer carries its contract, and a worker reads what applies

Why it exists

Operational moments from the Why catalogue that name one of this feature's mechanisms. Nothing here was assigned: a moment appears because it names a rule, a command, a capability or a claim this feature also names.

• →re-explained the same context to a brand-new session
• →found two agents fixing the same bug in two branches
• →watched the strongest model, at maximum effort, rename a variable
• →opened CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md and found two different rulebooks for one repository
• →watched a session undo last week's decision, for the reason it was made
• →found a task "in progress" that nobody had touched for three weeks

How it works

The capability modules of the executable this feature names, each with the capabilities it composes. The interfaces each one reaches are listed under Interfaces below: they are projections of one declaration, not separate registrations.

The objects it is made of

Kinds of the layer. Each is a schema, a source class and a file on disk; the number beside it is what this repository holds today, counted at build time.

• context39
• scope1
• workspace1

Where it sits

domain

Context — Every worker starts from what the repository already knows: the context that applies to its path, the handover the last session left, and the decisions already made.

areas of work

context

names

ContinuityPolicy

named by

Skills

Interfaces

Each capability behind it, on every interface it is projected onto. A link goes to this site's reference for that interface; an HTTP route and an MCP tool are answered by a running majordomus serve, not by this site.

in the Cockpit, of a running server

/cockpit/directories Directories

Evidence

What is guaranteed

Each claim this feature names, with the status its row declares, the verdict the recorded runs support, and the test that settles it.

• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run The context that applies to a path is composed from the layer's scoped documents, root to target, in one deterministic order with provenance, and a tree that does not validate resolves nothing test/cases/69_context_documents.sh
• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run Every directory of the layer carries a context document, the exemption is declared by the contract that governs the subtree, and a descendant may narrow that requirement but never weaken it test/cases/69_context_documents.sh
• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run The impact of a change set on the scoped context is reported from git — the documents, the scopes below them, moves with their ancestry, tracked sources to review, and stale projections — and an unrelated change reports nothing test/cases/70_context_impact.sh
• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run The assembled context obeys a line budget, and every section it drops is named with its reason test/cases/23_context.sh
• !declared status: advisory ○recorded evidence: not run A profile declares which context a worker should load and no more test/cases/04_start_check.sh
• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run What a worker reads of the repository is declared once in .ai/repo/scope.yaml, out wins over in, and the Rust executable discovers, indexes and serves nothing outside it test/cases/93_scope_policy.sh
• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run The repository's AI layer is one directory whose manifest names every section, readable without the tool test/cases/01_init.sh
• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run Checkout-local state lives under .ai/local/, is ignored by git, and is absent on a fresh clone or worktree test/cases/01_init.sh
• ○declared status: guaranteed ○recorded evidence: not run A hardcoded count in the always-loaded file is a failure test/cases/03_update.sh

Executable use cases

• continuityRead only the context that fits the budget, and know what was dropped
• knowledgeRefuse a directory of the layer that documents nothing
• knowledgeTrace a change to the context documents it affects
• knowledgeDecide what belongs in the AI context, as data

The rules that hold it

• ✕blocking Context integritymajordomus.context-integrity
• !advisory Load minimum sufficient contextmajordomus.minimum-sufficient-context
• ✕blocking Context localityproject.context-locality
• ✕blocking What a worker reads is declared once, and nothing outside it is read or servedproject.scope-is-declared
• !advisory Layout integritymajordomus.layout-integrity
• ✕blocking AI layer integritymajordomus.ai-layout-integrity

The decisions behind it

• adr-0011Every directory in the layer carries a contract proposed

Using it

The commands that run it

• majordomus context work · read-only

  What the next worker needs to know now, in authority order and within a budget.

From the executable's command line

The synopsis of each, as the executable's own help prints it.

• majordomus scope [OPTIONS] [PATHS]

  The repository scope: what a worker reads and what it never reads; with paths, whether each is in or out and why

• majordomus devcontext compile [OPTIONS]

  Compile the context for a piece of work: every selected object with its provenance, the reason and the confidence, everything left out with the reason, what was deduplicated, and the per-tier budget; exit 10 when what may not be dropped already exceeds the budget

• majordomus devcontext explain [OPTIONS] <URI>

  Why one canonical identifier is or is not in the context a request compiles to

• majordomus devcontext policy [OPTIONS]

  The compiler's own rules: the tiers, every edge of the composed graph and what is done with it, the selectors, the defaults

• majordomus pack plan [OPTIONS] [PROFILE]

  What a profile would pack: files carried, files left out by reason, the shards and every finding that refuses the build; exit 10 on a finding, 12 when the tree cannot be read

• majordomus pack verify [OPTIONS] <DIR>

  Verify a written pack against its manifest and the profile it names; exit 10 on a finding, 12 when the manifest cannot be read

Where this page comes from

the file

.ai/repo/features/context.md

the same answer

majordomus product show context

read further

Scoped context

The repository scope

Related features

• named by this feature · same domain

  Continuity

  ✓feature status: stable

  A session ends and the work does not: what the next worker needs is a typed record checked against git, not a transcript somebody hopes to find.

  Explore Continuity →

• same domain

  Knowledge

  ✓feature status: stable

  What was decided, why, and what was rejected is recorded where the next session reads it, and a durable decision becomes an architecture record with typed links to what it put in force.

  Explore Knowledge →

• named by this feature

  Policy

  ✓feature status: stable

  Every provider the tool declares — an agent, an orchestrator that runs agents, any tool that reads AGENTS.md — gets the same rules from the same place, because their instruction files are generated from one policy and never written by hand; the providers are the table in docs/generated/providers.md.

  Explore Policy →

• names this feature · same domain

  Skills

  ✓feature status: stable

  A skill is one directory under the layer; adding it is the whole act, and the command line, the website and MCP all read it from the same file.

  Explore Skills →