rule-test-author

Status: shipped-beta · Ships to: npm lane — delivered into the consumer's .claude/agents/ by the setup delivery loop (setup.d/20-agents.sh:24) · Fires at: dispatched as a Claude Code sub-agent

What it is

Sub-agent that writes or repairs the firing test material for a rule the framework already generated, verifies it with the lane's own deterministic check, and quotes the tool's verdict — "what you author is the evidence that it still fires" (agents/rule-test-author.md:22). Frontmatter scope: material for an EXISTING rule, verified "without re-running the full research pass"; NOT for creating new rules — that is /rule-research (agents/rule-test-author.md:9).

How it works

• Edit surface. npm lane: the negative-test entry of a rule in .ai-factory/synthesizer-output/rules-manifest-additions.json; astgrep/ruff lanes: the enrichment sidecar .ai-factory/rule-tests/<backend>.json (agents/rule-test-author.md:28).
• Never the rule. "You NEVER edit the emitted rule artifact" — it is drift/hash-gated; a step that touches the rule «to make the test pass» has inverted the discipline (T-RTS-B) (agents/rule-test-author.md:29).
• Protocol. Read the delivered rule artifact → write/repair the material → run the lane's deterministic check in single-rule isolation → paste the tool's own stdout into the report; no «verified» claim is valid without the isolation run and the quoted verdict (T-RTS-C) (agents/rule-test-author.md:44).
• Single-rule isolation is binding. Reported diagnostic codes alias across rules on two lanes — ruff emits TID251/TID253 for every banned-import/banned-API rule, cargo emits clippy::disallowed_methods for every method ban; only astgrep reports a per-rule id, so a green run against a many-rule config is meaningless (agents/rule-test-author.md:50).
• Also carries the per-lane honesty map v0 (what each lane's verification actually proves today) and the D3 staleness-consent script (detect → explain → offer → run-on-consent over the two staleness ledgers) (agents/rule-test-author.md:74).

Satellites & companions

• USES: each lane's deterministic verifier (npm validator gates, ast-grep scan --json, ruff check --output-format=json, cargo clippy) — verification is tool verdicts, zero LLM adjudication.
• ADAPTS: the write/repair half of the rule-tests protocol; it composes with /rule-research, the stage «create» half (agents/rule-test-author.md:24).
• ADDS: the hash-exemption argument — canonicalRuleHash covers only a rule's identity fields, so a negative-test repair does not trip the anti-hand-edit gate (agents/rule-test-author.md:31).
• Census satellite: B4. Carries @dual-pair: rule-tests-protocol (agents/rule-test-author.md:15).

Anchors

• agents/rule-test-author.md:2 — name: rule-test-author
• agents/rule-test-author.md:3 — description: >-
• agents/rule-test-author.md:4 — Writes or repairs the firing TEST MATERIAL for an EXISTING generated rule — the negative-test …
• agents/rule-test-author.md:6 — lane's deterministic verification in single-rule isolation and quotes the tool verdict verbatim.
• setup.d/20-agents.sh:24 — for f in "$PKG_ROOT"/agents/*.md; do
• agents/rule-test-author.md:19 — > **Authoritative for:** the AI-agnostic rule-tests write/repair protocol — read a delivered rule artifact → write/repair its firing TEST MATERIAL …
• agents/rule-test-author.md:28 — - **You edit TEST MATERIAL only.** npm lane: the `negative-test` entry of a rule in `.ai-factory/synthesizer-output/rules-manifest-additions.json` …
• agents/rule-test-author.md:29 — - **You NEVER edit the emitted rule artifact** (the `check`/`selector`/`title` of a generated rule). That artifact is drift/hash-gated. …
• agents/rule-test-author.md:44 — ### 3. Verify in single-rule isolation, then quote the verdict verbatim
• agents/rule-test-author.md:48 — ## Single-rule isolation (binding)
• agents/rule-test-author.md:50 — Reported diagnostic codes **alias across rules** on two lanes: ruff emits `TID251`/`TID253` for _every_ banned-import / banned-API rule, and cargo emits `clippy…

All anchors at framework pin b069c59328aa8e08671d3a19fd25efa618dfc1c5 (fetched 2026-09-11 from artyhoo/getff staging; ancestry of census pin a1337cb301 verified).