invigil

# Invigil

**A CI quality gate that grades a repo against a product-quality *doctrine* — not code style.**

[![CI](https://github.com/invigil/invigil/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/invigil/invigil/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
[![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-Apache--2.0-blue)](LICENSE)
[![PyPI](https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/invigil)](https://pypi.org/project/invigil/)
[![GitHub Marketplace](https://img.shields.io/badge/Marketplace-Invigil-2088FF?logo=githubactions&logoColor=white)](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/invigil-product-quality-gate)
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[![OpenSSF Scorecard](https://api.scorecard.dev/projects/github.com/invigil/invigil/badge)](https://scorecard.dev/viewer/?uri=github.com/invigil/invigil)
[![Invigil grade](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/invigil/invigil/main/badges/invigil.json)](https://github.com/invigil/invigil)
[![AI-ready](https://img.shields.io/endpoint?url=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/invigil/invigil/main/badges/invigil-ai.json)](https://github.com/invigil/invigil#when-your-user-is-an-agent)

Linters check your *code*. Dependabot checks your *dependencies*. **Nothing checks whether
your project is legible — whether someone arriving cold can act on it:** boot it in ten
minutes, get an error that tells them the fix, install the thing on PyPI *today*, read a
README that's still a landing page and not a 600-line wall.

That is the test every open-source project takes when someone new finds it — a new engineer,
or increasingly an AI agent with a context window instead of patience. If they can't get to
"hello world" in 10 minutes, they leave. If the artifact on PyPI is broken because CI only
tests the source tree, they leave. If the error message is a silent stack trace, they leave.

Invigil turns those promises into mechanical, exact-fix-reporting checks and runs them in CI —
so the project speaks for itself.

> *invigilate* — to watch over an exam and enforce its rules.

---

## How Invigil fits in your stack

Invigil does not replace your existing tools; it covers the product-quality gaps they leave behind.

| Tool | Focus | What it misses (that Invigil catches) |
|---|---|---|
| **Linters / SonarQube** | Code style, static bugs, complexity | Does the *published artifact* actually boot? Is the README approachable? |
| **Dependabot / Renovate** | Keeping dependencies updated | Are you enforcing the lockfile in CI? Is there a version matrix? |
| **OpenSSF Scorecard** | Supply-chain security (branch rules, tokens) | Does the project have a Quick Start? Are failure modes actionable? |
| **Invigil** | Product quality, legibility, error hygiene | (Invigil relies on the above tools and enforces their presence) |

---

## Why

You already wrote the doctrine; you just enforce it by hand. Every failing Invigil check tells
you **what's wrong, why it matters, and the exact command to fix it** — because a gate that
can't tell you how to pass it is the same broken-error-message anti-pattern it's meant to catch.

It grades against seven **Gates**, each a legibility promise to a different cold-start reader:

| Gate | The promise |
|---|---|
| **G1** | Anyone arriving cold succeeds in 10 minutes on a clean machine |
| **G2** | Every failure mode tells the user the fix |
| **G3** | Published artifacts are machine-verified daily |
| **G4** | Supply-chain evidence is public (Scorecard ≥7, signed releases, SBOM) |
| **G5** | All five doors open and documented (newbie, operator, contributor, enterprise, AI) |
| **G6** | First external contributor merged without hand-holding |
| **G7** | Cited/integrated by projects you don't control |

A repo *reaches* `Gn` only when every mandatory check for gates ≤ n passes, and gets a letter
grade from its weighted score.

## Install

One tool, four doors — pick the one that matches where you run it:

| Channel | Where it fits | One-liner |
|---|---|---|
| **PyPI** | local runs, Python-friendly CI | `pip install invigil` |
| **GitHub Action** | GitHub PRs | `uses: invigil/invigil@v1` |
| **Docker (ghcr)** | GitLab, Jenkins, any non-Python CI | `docker run --rm -v "$PWD:/repo" ghcr.io/invigil/invigil score /repo` |
| **pre-commit** | offline checks on every commit | hooks `invigil-layout`, `invigil-secrets` (below) |
| **MCP server** | agents (Claude Code, any MCP client) | `pip install "invigil[mcp]"` → `invigil mcp` |

Every release ships all of it signed: cosign-signed wheel, sdist, and container image, plus an
SPDX SBOM — verifiable with `cosign verify` against the GitHub OIDC identity.

## Quick Start

Run it locally on any repo:

```bash
pip install invigil
invigil score .            # human-readable scorecard + the exact fix for every failure
invigil score . --format markdown   # a PR-comment-ready table
invigil score . --format json       # machine-readable
```

Add it to CI as a report-only gate (posts a scorecard comment + badge, never blocks a PR):

```yaml
# .github/workflows/quality-gate.yml
name: Quality gate
on: [pull_request]
permissions: { contents: read, pull-requests: write }
jobs:
  invigil:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: invigil/invigil@v1        # the doctrine scorecard
        with:
          enforce: "false"              # flip to true once the grade is stable
```

Flip `enforce: "true"` (or set `project.enforce: true` in `.invigil.yml`) when you're ready for
it to block merges below the target gate.

The action exposes the rendered report and badge as step outputs — pipe the scorecard into the
job summary or publish the badge JSON wherever shields.io can reach it:

```yaml
      - uses: invigil/invigil@v1
        id: invigil
        with: { comment: "false" }
      - run: cat "${{ steps.invigil.outputs.report }}" >> "$GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY"
      # steps.invigil.outputs.badge → path to the shields.io endpoint JSON
```

## How it works

Two layers, matching the doctrine:

- **Static Doctrine Scorecard** (every PR, seconds) — inspects the repo filesystem and GitHub
  metadata: LICENSE, README length, `.env.example`, a deep-health endpoint, a global error-id
  handler, SHA-pinned actions, an enforced lockfile, a coverage gate, a daily published-artifact
  smoke test, ≥5 good-first-issues, docs index, `llms.txt`/`AGENTS.md`, and more. Emits text /
  JSON / Markdown / a shields.io badge.
- **Cold-Start Gate** (nightly, reusable — `invigil stranger`) — on a clean runner, installs
  and boots each *published* artifact you declare and probes its core surface within a
  10-minute budget. Web services get HTTP probes; a CLI image (an artifact with a `command:`)
  is run to completion and must exit 0. One reusable workflow replaces the 60-line
  `smoke-published.yml` every repo copy-pastes:

```yaml
# .github/workflows/stranger-gate.yml
name: Cold-start gate
on:
  schedule: [{ cron: "0 3 * * *" }]
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  stranger:
    uses: invigil/invigil/.github/workflows/stranger-gate.yml@v1
```

### Fix by PR (Dependabot-for-legibility)

Opt in to a scheduled bot that applies Invigil's mechanical fixes on a work branch and opens
**one batched PR** — governance scaffolds, agent context files, config hygiene. Three
anti-noise rules are built in: it's opt-in only, one stable branch means one PR (never five),
and a PR you close unmerged is a "no" the bot respects — it stays silent until you delete the
`invigil/fixes` branch.

```yaml
# .github/workflows/legibility-fixes.yml
name: Legibility fixes
on:
  schedule: [{ cron: "0 6 1 * *" }]   # monthly — these are one-time scaffolds, not deps
  workflow_dispatch:
jobs:
  fix:
    uses: invigil/invigil/.github/workflows/fix-pr.yml@v1
```

Under the hood it runs `invigil score --fix --pr-mode`: the fix engine's CI-lockout stays
in force for protected branches — `--pr-mode` only permits fixes on a non-default branch,
so nothing automated ever lands on `main` without a human merging the PR.

## Configuration

Drop a `.invigil.yml` at the repo root. It's optional for the static scorecard (sensible
defaults apply) and required for the Cold-Start Gate (it declares what to boot and probe). Full
schema in [`schema/invigil.schema.json`](schema/invigil.schema.json); examples in
[`examples/`](examples/).

```yaml
version: 1
project:
  name: my-app
  language: python
  min_gate: G4
  enforce: false
artifacts:
  - type: pypi
    name: "my-app[all]"
  - type: ghcr
    image: ghcr.io/me/my-app:latest
    port: 8000
probes:
  - { url: "/", expect_status: 200 }
  - { url: "/api/things", expect_json_count: { min: 5 } }
boot_budget_minutes: 10
```

## Lightweight & modular

A gate developers bypass is dead weight, so Invigil is built for zero friction:

- **Fast offline groups for pre-commit** — each check is tagged `local`/`network`/`heavy`.
  `invigil check layout` runs the filesystem checks with no network in ~120ms:

  ```yaml
  # .pre-commit-config.yaml
  - repo: https://github.com/invigil/invigil
    rev: v1        # tracks the latest v1.x.y
    hooks: [{ id: invigil-layout }, { id: invigil-secrets }]
  ```

  Heavier, network-bound checks (`scorecard`, the Cold-Start Gate) stay in CI.
  `invigil score --offline` / `--layer local` / `--group supply-chain` slice it any way.
- **Profiles, so it bends instead of forking.** `profile: strict | progressive | light`, plus
  per-check `weights`, `optional` (ding without gating), and `thresholds.fail_on`. Make it your
  doctrine, not a hardcoded one.
- **Resilient by design.** A scorecard.dev timeout is a SKIP that's excluded from the grade —
  never a false A-to-C downgrade, never a crashed build.
- **AI-era native.** The `ai` group checks that your `llms.txt`/`AGENTS.md` leak no secrets and
  that agent code declares its tool inventory — the first slice of "what's the blast radius if
  this agent is