Glossary (adaptive-manifest-schema)¶

Key terms for understanding MANIFEST.toml structure, schema validation, and agent safety constraints.

MANIFEST.toml¶

The repository declaration file present in every Adaptive Interfaces repo. Declares identity, scope, dependencies, provided artifacts, and tooling configuration. Machine-readable, human-legible, and reviewable. Validated by adaptive-manifest validate.

schema¶

The top-level string field in MANIFEST.toml that declares which schema version the file conforms to.

schema_url¶

The top-level string field pointing to the schema definition document. Required alongside schema. Allows tooling and humans to locate the canonical field definitions.

Section¶

A TOML table within MANIFEST.toml, declared as [section_name]. Sections are either required or optional depending on the repo class. The schema defines which sections are allowed and what fields each may contain.

Required section¶

A section that must be present for a given repo class. The validator reports an error if it is absent.

Optional section¶

A section that may be present but is not required.

Forbidden section¶

A section that must not be present for a given repo class. The validator reports an error if it is found. Currently no sections are forbidden for any defined class.

Field¶

A key-value pair within a section. The validator checks unknown fields and missing required fields.

Repo class¶

The declared category of a repository, set in [repo].class. Drives which sections are required.

Layer¶

The declared position of a repository in the ecosystem layer model. Set in [layer].space and [layer].role. Describes where the repo sits conceptually, not technically.

Conservative default¶

The behavior applied when an agent safety field is omitted from [agent]. Omitting a field never grants additional permissions.

Read-generate-review cycle¶

The architectural checkpoint for all agent operations in this ecosystem. Agents read files and produce artifacts. Humans review before anything is applied. No agent has autonomous write access to production systems. Declared in [agent] and enforced as a process constraint, not only a schema field.

permissions¶

An [agent] field declaring the authorized operation scope for agents in a repo. Allowed values:

checkpoint¶

An [agent] field declaring the required human review gate before agent output is applied. Allowed values:

scope¶

An [agent] field declaring the filesystem boundary for agent operations. Allowed values:

sensitive_paths¶

An [agent] field listing paths the agent must not read, reproduce, or reference. The agent must stop and request human guidance if a task requires access to these paths. Examples: ["data/", ".env", "secrets/"].

stop_on_ambiguity¶

An [agent] boolean field. When true, the agent must stop and report rather than guess when task scope is unclear or evidence is insufficient. Default: true.

conformance¶

An [agent] field pointing to the behavioral protocol the agent must apply before generating any artifact. Typically points to the Adaptive Conformance Specification (ACS).

skill¶

An [agent] field pointing to the domain operating guide (SKILL.md). The agent reads this after ACS conformance is complete.

conventions.source¶

The [conventions] field declaring the conformance source for repo scaffolding. An agent clones this repo, observes its convention files, and conforms to them when generating a scaffold for the current repo.

validate_manifest¶

The public Python function importable by downstream consumers to validate their own MANIFEST.toml against the schema. Returns a list of error strings; empty list means valid.

from adaptive_manifest_schema.validate_manifest import validate_manifest

adaptive-manifest validate¶

The CLI command for validating a MANIFEST.toml against the schema. Calls validate_manifest internally.

uv run adaptive-manifest validate
uv run adaptive-manifest validate --strict
uv run adaptive-manifest validate --path path/to/MANIFEST.toml