fix: usage errors exit 3, disjoint from the honest lane - #20
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FAMILY.md clause 1: exit 2 is the honest lane -- a first-class cannot-adjudicate verdict a consuming agent routes to a human WITHOUT retrying. A malformed invocation is the opposite: the caller should fix the call and retry. Sharing one code made the two indistinguishable, so an agent following the docs escalated its own bad calls to a human as if they were rulings. Exit 3 is the family precedent, set by srdcheck. Implemented by overriding ArgumentParser.error(), which hardcodes exit 2. The packaging-incomplete path and every unusable-input envelope stay on 2 -- those are verdicts, not bad calls. SKILL.md and tool.json updated to match -- a code change that leaves the contract prose stale is the exact defect this whole effort exists to catch. Regression tests assert usage errors exit 3 AND that legitimate refusals stay on 2, because the risk here is over-applying the change. Also bumps the family-conformance srdcheck pin to the first baseline that no longer waives HONEST_LANE_OVERLOAD; both must land together or the ratchet fails with STALE BASELINE. Closes #15 Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
scripts/assert_test_collection.py pins the collected-test count so pytest cannot silently stop collecting part of the suite. Three tests added in this branch, so 202 -> 205. Updated deliberately, which is the point of the ratchet. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Closes #15.
The defect
FAMILY.md clause 1: exit 2 is the honest lane — a first-class cannot-adjudicate verdict a consuming agent routes to a human without retrying. A malformed invocation is the opposite: the caller should fix the call and retry.
dmcheck returned 2 for both. They were distinguishable only by whether stdout happened to carry JSON, so an agent following the docs escalated its own bad calls to a human as if they were rulings.
srdcheck's exit 3 is the family precedent, and clause 1 now says so explicitly.
The fix
argparse hardcodes exit 2 in
parser.error(), somain()builds anArgumentParsersubclass that exits 3 instead. Nothing else moves:The packaging-incomplete path and every unusable-input envelope stay on 2 — those are verdicts, not bad calls.
Docs and tests
SKILL.mdandtool.jsonupdated to match. A code change that leaves the contract prose stale is the exact defect this whole effort exists to catch.New regression tests assert usage errors exit 3 and that a legitimate honest-lane refusal stays on 2 — the real risk here is over-applying the change, so both directions are locked. Suite: 157 tests, only the pre-existing
test_packagingbuild-backend env error, verified identical on untouchedmain.Release note
0.6.0 is unreleased (
tool.json: "public 0.5.5 predates this contract"), so this contract change folds into it rather than breaking a shipped version.Pin bump
Bundled, and required: chaoz23/srdcheck#88 removed this waiver, and the ratchet fails a waiver that no longer fires. Fix without pin bump →
STALE BASELINE.Remaining for dmcheck: #14 (
--pipe), now its only waived finding.🤖 Generated with Claude Code