# Tools — where the scripts are, and which ones can stop you

```
Status: Current
Owner: _null
Last reviewed: 2026-08-18
Governs: scripts/**, .githooks/**, package.json — the tooling, and which of
         it can stop you
Review trigger: Any script added to, removed from or repurposed in scripts/; any
                change to which of them gates; any change to the npm scripts
```

> A signpost, deliberately. Every project that adopts this template has a
> `docs/TOOLS.md`, so "read `docs/TOOLS.md` first" is an instruction that works
> without knowing anything about the project — which is the whole reason this
> file exists at a fixed path.

## The list is not here

**[`architecture/README.md`](architecture/README.md)** holds the table of what
ships in `scripts/` and what each one is. That is the one copy.

A second table here would be two records of one fact, and the other one would
never hear that a script was renamed — the failure `DOC_TRUST_MAP.md` exists to
prevent, applied to the tooling instead of the documents. So this file answers
the questions that table does not, and points at it for everything else.

## If this project has fewer scripts than the template lists

That is the intended state, not a broken copy. The template's `scaffold.sh`
writes the documents and deliberately leaves the scripts behind — *"an
unconfigured `release.sh` landing in every new repository is a loaded gun, not a
head start"* — so they are taken one at a time, having been read.

This project took ten of them on 2026-08-18 and declined the rest. What it
declined, and why, is in `docs/history/DEVELOPMENT_LOG.md` under that date. The
short version: no `release.sh` or `deploy.py` until the roll-forward path to
nebula is written down, and no `controls.sh` until there are backups for it to
report on.

## Which ones can stop you

Not in a table, because the honest answer lives in each script's own header and
would go stale here. The rule that matters:

**Exit code `2` is never a pass.** These scripts distinguish "the check ran and
found nothing" from "the check did not run", because those look identical from
the outside and only one of them is evidence. A CI step or a hook that treats a
`2` as success has quietly turned the check off. Each script states its codes at
the top; read them there.

In this repository specifically, `check-env.sh` and `verify.sh` will both exit 2
if you gut their configuration, and `preflight.sh` exits 2 when the site is
simply unreachable — which is the case you most want to tell apart from a pass.

The hooks are the other place work gets stopped. See below.

## Where to start in a fresh clone

```bash
npm install
git config core.hooksPath .githooks     # per clone. Not optional. See below
bash scripts/check-env.sh --file .env   # what is configured, before anything reads it
bash scripts/secrets.sh --tracked       # what is already committed
```

Then [`architecture/GUARDS.md`](architecture/GUARDS.md) before you write a check
of your own — how to write one that can actually fail.

## The hooks

Four, in `.githooks/`, because `.git/hooks` is not versioned and a hook living
there protects exactly one clone.

| Hook | What it runs here |
| --- | --- |
| `pre-commit` | `scripts/secrets.sh` on the staged diff, then `npm run build` when source is staged |
| `commit-msg` | refuses a message with no conventional type |
| `post-commit` | **pushes to `origin`** |
| `pre-push` | refuses a push that leaves uncommitted or staged edits behind |

`pre-push` is not the template's — it is the useful half of a hook that was
already sitting in this checkout's `.git/hooks` before adoption. Setting
`core.hooksPath` would have silently stopped that one running, which is exactly
the failure this directory exists to prevent, so it was moved here instead. Its
third check went: it refused whenever the branch was ahead of its remote, which
is the precondition for pushing at all, so it fired on every real push and told
you to re-run with `--no-verify`. A guard that can never pass teaches people to
bypass the ones beside it.

`git config core.hooksPath .githooks` is per clone, so every checkout runs it
once. An uninstalled hook fails silently, which is the same class of problem the
hooks exist to prevent.

**Two things worth knowing before you rely on them.**

`pre-commit` is **not** the template's version. That one runs `npx tsc --noEmit`
and `npx vitest run`; this project has neither TypeScript nor a test runner, so
installing it unchanged would have refused every commit. It runs the secret scan
— which is the reason the hook earns its place here at all, given the Zoho form
tokens that reached four commits before anyone noticed — and then `npm run build`
when `src/`, `server/`, `index.html`, `vite.config.js` or `package.json` is
staged. **That is a build, not a test.** It catches a broken import and will not
catch a broken behaviour.

`post-commit` pushes, and that is the intent — but it has a consequence worth
holding on to: whatever documentation was not in that commit is now behind the
code by one push. That is the mechanical reason `docs/WORK_CYCLE.md` asks for doc
edits in the same commit rather than in a tidy-up afterwards. With this hook
installed, *"I will document it next commit"* means the site has already
published the version without it.

Escape hatches, both loud on purpose: `SKIP_GUARDS=1 git commit …` and
`SKIP_PUSH=1 git commit …`.

## This project's npm scripts

Run from the repository root.

| Command | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `npm install` | dependencies |
| `npm run dev` | Vite and the Express API together, via `concurrently`. Frontend on 5173, API on 3001 |
| `npm run build` | **three steps**: the client bundle, then an SSR bundle from `src/entry-server.jsx`, then `scripts/prerender.js`, which writes static HTML for every route. This is the only real gate this project has |
| `npm run build:client` | the client bundle alone. Does **not** prerender — do not use it to produce a release |
| `npm run preview` | serve the built client |
| `npm start` / `npm run server` | the Express server alone, serving `dist/` |
| `npm run docker:build` / `docker:run` | build and run the image locally |
| `npm run docker:compose:up` / `:down` / `:logs` | the compose stack |
| `npm run release` | **publish an image.** Bump, guards, build, verify its version label, push `:vX.Y.Z`, commit last, tag. `-- --dry-run` first |
| `npm run deploy` | **move the running stack** to a published **numbered** version — the newest by default, `-- --tag vX.Y.Z` to pin or roll back. Backs up first, and refuses a floating tag. `-- --dry-run` first |

| `npm run docker:test` | build the image and smoke-test it on 3001 |

**There is no `npm test`, and that is not an omission in this table.** There is
no test runner in the project. `docs/qa/ClaudeQACoverage.md` carries it as a
standing gap — and it is why `npm run release` says out loud that its gate is a
build, a secret scan and a doc-header check rather than pretending those are
tests.

**`release` and `deploy` are two commands on purpose.** Publishing an image and
running it are separate decisions; see `docs/OPERATIONS.md`. A deploy recreates
the container and takes both public front doors down together.

A liveness check by hand, when you want one without the script:

```bash
curl -s https://queuenorth.com/api/health    # production
curl -s https://qn.isnull.dev/api/health     # same container, other ingress
# both -> {"status":"ok","db":"ok","timestamp":"…"}
```

If those two disagree, the container is fine and the problem is in front of it.
`docs/OPERATIONS.md` has the topology.

## Two checks that are run by hand

Neither is adopted into `scripts/`, so neither runs in `verify.sh`. Both are
worth running when the documents change a lot.

**`doc-claims.sh` — every path a document names must exist.** Run from the
template, and **exclude `docs/history/`**:

```bash
T=~/.openclaw/Projects/Template
DOC_CLAIMS_EXCLUDE='docs/proposed/|project-template/|vendor/|docs/history/' \
  bash $T/docs/architecture/scripts/doc-claims.sh docs/ README.md
```

That exclusion is not a way of quietening a failure. `docs/history/DEVELOPMENT_LOG.md`
is dated and append-only, and its entries name files that existed **when they
were written** — src/pages/8x8.jsx, removed at `0.6.6`; src/App.css, gone in a
later refactor. Both are named without backticks here for the same reason the
exclusion exists: a backticked path is a claim the file is present. Those are receipts, not claims about now, and correcting them
would rewrite the record of what was known at the time, which is the one thing
that file is for. Checking a history log for present-tense accuracy is a category
error, so it is excluded rather than edited.

Without the exclusion it reports three findings in that file, every time, forever.
Last run 2026-08-18: **240 claimed paths, all present, across 20 files.**

**`qa-browser.mjs` is in `scripts/` but not in `verify.sh`.** It needs
playwright, which is installed globally on this machine rather than being a
dependency of the project — adding ~300MB of browser to every clone for a check
nobody runs per-commit is the wrong trade. Reach for it when a UI defect is
filed, and before writing one:

```bash
node scripts/qa-browser.mjs                                    # production
node scripts/qa-browser.mjs --url http://localhost:3099        # a local build
node scripts/qa-browser.mjs --paths /contact --viewports 320
```

Exit 2 means playwright was missing or the site was unreachable — nothing was
checked, which is not a pass.

**`prove-guard.sh` is deliberately absent.** It breaks what a guard protects and
requires the guard to go red. This project has three guards, all shell scripts
that fail visibly, so §1 of `architecture/GUARDS.md` was performed by hand
instead — see `docs/history/DEVELOPMENT_LOG.md` for 2026-08-18.

## Adding a script

Put it in `scripts/`, give it a header saying what it does and **which incident
motivated it**, state its exit codes, and add a row to
`architecture/README.md`'s table — this file's `Review trigger` fires on exactly
that.

The bar, from the scripts that are already here: **done by hand three times, or
once with a consequence.** A script written before either of those has no failure
to describe in its header, which is the part that stops the next person deleting
it.
