Decision 006: Dogfood the-loop's own quality gates (pre-commit + CI parity)

• Status: accepted
• Date: 2026-06-30
• Deciders: @MadaraUchiha-314 (via PR #2 review)
• Work item: issue-1

Context

the-loop declared per-language tooling in config but did not actually run any linting, type-checking, tests or pre-commit/CI on its own repository. Issue #1 requires pre-commit hooks (lint/typecheck/unit-test) and that CI uses exactly the same tooling as local. the-loop should dogfood this.

Decision

Wire real quality gates for the-loop's own sources (a Python CLI + markdown docs):

• ruff (lint + format) for cli/, pyright (type check), pytest (unit tests), markdownlint-cli2 for all markdown, and a schema validation script for .the-loop config.
• A single pre-commit config drives all of them. Hooks are local/system (they call the binaries on PATH) so there is one tool per check and no duplicate installs.
• CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) installs the same pinned tools and runs pre-commit run --all-files — literally the same hooks as local. RULE satisfied.
• A root Makefile (make check, lint, typecheck, test, validate) wraps the same tools; all scripts run from the root.
• Updated the-loop's own .the-loop/config.yaml to reflect Python (was mistakenly ts).
• Markdown style: a curated .markdownlint-cli2.jsonc keeps structural rules and relaxes stylistic ones (line length, ASCII diagrams, <placeholder> tokens) that fight technical-doc style.

Consequences

• the-loop now practises what it preaches; every push is gated by the same checks CI runs.
• Scaffolding these gates into user projects via /init remains a separate deferred task (this decision covers the-loop's own repo).
• Pinning is done at the install step (pip/npx) rather than via pre-commit's remote repos, which the sandboxed environment cannot fetch.

Alternatives considered

• pre-commit's remote hook repos (ruff-pre-commit, etc.) — rejected here: the environment's git proxy blocks cloning them; local/system hooks are reproducible and keep local == CI.
• A heavier task runner (nox/tox) — unnecessary for a small CLI; Makefile + pre-commit suffice.