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A crate does not join the Nika workspace by being merged. It joins by passing all twelve gates in the same commit. No “we’ll fix Gate 5 later.” No “the spec is obvious.” A crate admission is one atomic commit.
Canonical source: RUST_ENFORCEMENT.md §12 Gates · checker scripts/ci/check-crate-gates.sh (machine-readable JSON output).Live progress: crates admitted · WIP () · projected horizon (cap ).

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The 12 gates

1

Gate 1: SPEC

A crate spec exists at docs/crate-specs/<crate>.md. It declares: purpose, layer (L0/L0.5/L1/L2/L3/L4), LOC budget, public API surface, security axes, tracked ADRs. No code before spec.
2

Gate 2: TDD

Tests written before implementation. The commit history shows RED before GREEN: failing tests on one commit, minimal implementation on the next. Reviewed in gate 11.
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Gate 3: IMPL

Minimal implementation. Compiles with cargo build --workspace. Every test green with cargo test --workspace --lib. No # TEMP without a removal plan. No #[allow(dead_code)]. No files >1500 LOC.
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Gate 4: CLIPPY 0

cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings: zero warnings. unwrap_used = "deny" enforced workspace-wide. Zero .unwrap() / .expect( in src/ outside #[cfg(test)].
5

Gate 5: MUTATION ≥ 90%

cargo mutants -p <crate>: at least 90% of mutants killed. Catches untested branches, “happy path only” tests, dead clauses. Data-heavy crates (e.g., nika-catalog) may use 85% with justification in spec.
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Gate 6: PROPERTY

Property tests via proptest for any crate touching: security, parsers, encoding, taint propagation, capability resolution. Regression seeds checked into proptest-regressions/.
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Gate 7: BENCHMARKS

benches/ directory with criterion if the crate is on a hot path (parsers, catalog lookup, template resolution). Waivable for pure-types crates with justification in spec.
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Gate 8: DOCS

cargo doc --no-deps --document-private-items: zero warnings. All public items documented. #[doc(hidden)] used sparingly and with reason.
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Gate 9: CANARY E2E

A .nika.yaml canary workflow under tests/canary-<crate>.nika.yaml exercises the crate end-to-end against the rest of the workspace. Waivable for L0 foundation crates with no runtime surface.
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Gate 10: PARITY LEGACY

Golden test comparing output against the legacy v0.79 implementation (read via git show main:path/to/file.rs). Flags behavior drift from v0.79 for conscious review. Landing from Phase 5+.
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Gate 11: REVIEW SWARM

Three parallel agents review the PR: spn-nika:code-reviewer + spn-rust:rust-pro + feature-dev:code-reviewer. Every P0 and P1 finding must be fixed in the same session before merge.
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Gate 12: ATOMIC COMMIT

Single commit. Message:

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Why twelve

Each gate catches a failure mode seen in production Rust codebases at scale. Dropping any one means accepting a known regression vector.

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Exemptions

A gate is genuinely not applicable for some crate types:
  • benches/ for a pure-types crate with no hot path.
  • Canary E2E for L0 foundation (nothing to execute end-to-end).
  • PARITY for crates with no v0.79 counterpart (Diamond-original code).
Exemptions are documented in docs/crate-specs/<crate>.md with a 1-paragraph justification. They are not defaults. They are deliberate.

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Admission cadence

One crate at a time. No parallel admission. No “let’s admit these 3 together.” Each crate commit is atomic, bisectable, and reviewable in isolation.
The rhythm: 1 crate admission = 1 commit = 1 tag increment a per-admission alpha tag (v0.8x.0-alpha.N). Every 4 weeks, a blog post or dev log entry. Public accountability.

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See also

Layer registry

Six layers. Mechanical sort test to pick the right layer for a new crate.

Forward-compat invariants

Eight patterns. The public-API contract every admitted crate honors.

L0 foundation decisions

Q1-Q13 locked: the per-crate decisions that shaped today’s L0.

Constellation

Live progress: admitted, WIP, planned.