🛡️ DocGuard

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The enforcement layer for Spec-Driven Development. Validate. Score. Enforce. Ship documentation that AI agents can actually use.

✨ See what DocGuard catches in 30 seconds — no install, no setup:

bash

npx docguard-cli demo

Runs against a baked-in sample project with intentional drift and shows you the findings + a clear path to fixing them.

Table of Contents

• What is DocGuard?
• Why DocGuard?
• Quick Start
• Spec Kit Integration
• Usage
• Validators
• Templates
• AI Agent Support
• Slash Commands
• Examples
• Testing
• CI/CD Integration
• What's New
• File Structure
• Configuration
• Research Credits

What is DocGuard?

DocGuard enforces Canonical-Driven Development (CDD) — a methodology where documentation is the source of truth, not an afterthought. AI writes the docs, DocGuard validates them.

DocGuard is an official GitHub Spec Kit community extension. It validates the artifacts that Spec Kit creates, ensuring your specs stay high-quality throughout the development lifecycle.

📖 Philosophy · 📋 CDD Standard · ⚖️ Comparisons · 🗺️ Roadmap

Architecture

graph TD
    CLI["CLI Entry<br/>docguard.mjs"] --> Commands["Commands (18)"]
    Commands --> guard["guard"]
    Commands --> generate["generate"]
    Commands --> score["score"]
    Commands --> diagnose["diagnose"]
    Commands --> setup["setup wizard"]
    Commands --> other["diff · init · fix · trace · impact · sync<br/>explain · memory · upgrade · agents · hooks · badge · ci · watch"]

    guard --> Validators["Validators (24)"]
    generate --> Scanners["Scanners (4)<br/>routes · schemas · doc-tools · speckit"]
    score --> Scoring["Weighted Scoring<br/>8 categories"]
    diagnose --> Validators
    diagnose --> AIPrompts["AI-Ready<br/>Fix Prompts"]

    Validators --> Output["Output"]
    Scanners --> Output
    Scoring --> Output
    Output --> Terminal["Terminal"]
    Output --> JSON["JSON"]
    Output --> Badge["Badge"]

    style CLI fill:#2d5016,color:#fff
    style Validators fill:#1a3a5c,color:#fff
    style Scanners fill:#1a3a5c,color:#fff
    style Output fill:#5c3a1a,color:#fff

Distribution: Node.js core (npm) · Python wrapper (PyPI) · GitHub Action (action.yml) · Spec Kit Extension (ZIP)

Why DocGuard?

Documentation that drifts from code is worse than no documentation — it confidently misleads humans and AI agents alike. DocGuard treats your canonical docs as an enforced contract: deterministic validators diff what the docs claim against what the code does, on every commit, with no LLM required. The full thesis (and the research behind it) lives in PHILOSOPHY.md; recent feature highlights moved below.

⚡ Quick Start

Package naming: this repo is raccioly/docguard; the published package is docguard-cli on both npm and PyPI; the installed command is docguard. Same project — the -cli suffix is just the registry name. The package runs no install scripts, so npm i -g docguard-cli --ignore-scripts is equivalent.

Node.js (npm)

# No install needed — run directly
npx docguard-cli diagnose

# Or install globally
npm i -g docguard-cli
docguard diagnose

Python (PyPI)

pip install docguard-cli
docguard diagnose

Note: The Python package is a thin wrapper that delegates to npx. Node.js 18+ is required on the system.

More ways to integrate

• pre-commit — changed-only guard on every commit:
  yaml

  repos:
    - repo: https://github.com/raccioly/docguard
      rev: v0.29.0
      hooks: [{ id: docguard-guard }]   # docguard-guard-full for pre-push
  

• MCP (Claude, Cursor, any MCP client) — claude mcp add docguard -- npx -y docguard-cli mcp; 5 read-only tools (guard, score, explain, verify-claims, diagnose). Registry manifest ships in-repo (server.json, Smithery-ready).
• GitLab CI — component staged at templates/ci/gitlab-component.yml (guard/score/ci job with a SARIF artifact).
• Homebrew — brew install raccioly/tap/docguard (formula in packaging/homebrew/).

Core Workflow

# 1. Initialize docs for your project
npx docguard-cli init

# 2. Or reverse-engineer docs from existing code
npx docguard-cli generate

# 3. AI diagnoses issues and generates fix prompts
npx docguard-cli diagnose

# 4. Validate — use as CI gate
npx docguard-cli guard

# 5. Check maturity score
npx docguard-cli score

The AI Loop

diagnose  →  AI reads prompts  →  AI fixes docs  →  guard verifies
   ↑                                                       ↓
   └───────────────── issues found? ←──────────────────────┘

diagnose is the primary command. It runs all validators, maps every failure to an AI-actionable fix prompt, and outputs a remediation plan. Your AI agent runs it, fixes the docs, and runs guard to verify.

Mechanical vs. agent fixes

DocGuard splits drift into two kinds and is explicit about which is which:

docguard fix --write only touches docs marked <!-- docguard:generated true --> (override with --force), is idempotent, and prints exactly what changed. It never rewrites prose — that stays with the agent.

Hands-off loop (set and forget)

guard ──▶ fix --write (mechanical, auto) ──▶ guard ──▶ diagnose (agent prompts for the rest)

• CI / pre-commit: docguard hooks --type pre-commit --auto-fix installs a hook that applies mechanical fixes, re-stages the docs, then runs guard; anything left is surfaced as agent prompts.
• Agent-driven: docguard diagnose --auto scaffolds missing docs and applies mechanical fixes, then emits prompts for the content rewrites that remain.
• JSON for automation: guard/diagnose --format json include a mechanicalFixes array and tag each issue mechanical vs agent, so an agent can apply or delegate precisely.

🌱 Spec Kit Integration

DocGuard is a community extension for GitHub's Spec Kit framework. While Spec Kit focuses on creating specifications (via AI slash commands like /speckit.specify and /speckit.plan), DocGuard focuses on validating their quality.

How They Work Together

┌─────────────────┐          ┌──────────────────┐
│    Spec Kit      │          │    DocGuard       │
│                  │          │                   │
│  /speckit.specify│ ──────→  │  docguard guard   │
│  Creates specs   │          │  Validates specs  │
│  (AI-driven)     │          │  (automated)      │
└─────────────────┘          └──────────────────┘

What DocGuard Validates in Spec Kit Projects

• spec.md — Mandatory sections (User Scenarios, Requirements, Success Criteria), FR-xxx IDs, SC-xxx IDs
• plan.md — Summary, Technical Context, Project Structure sections
• tasks.md — Phased task breakdown (Phase 1, 2, 3+), T-xxx task IDs
• constitution.md — Detected at .specify/memory/constitution.md or project root
• Requirement traceability — FR, SC, NFR, US, AC, UC, SYS, ARCH, MOD, T IDs

Installing as a Spec Kit Extension

specify extension add docguard

This installs DocGuard's slash commands (/docguard.init, /docguard.guard, /docguard.review, /docguard.fix, /docguard.update) into your AI agent's command palette.

Usage

DocGuard ships 18 commands (the "Daily 5" + 13 situational tools, including the zero-install demo and the mcp server). Six additional one-shot scaffolders are accessed via docguard init --with <name>. Eight v0.19 commands continue to work as deprecation aliases through v0.20.x — see MIGRATION-v0.20.md.

The Daily 5 — what you'll reach for 95% of the time:

Tools (situational, but day-to-day useful):

init --with <name> scaffolders — picked at init time:

Run them solo (docguard init --with hooks) or stacked (docguard init --with agents,hooks,badge,ci).

Deprecation aliases — setup · agents · hooks · ci · badge · llms · publish · impact keep working in v0.20.x with a yellow stderr warning. audit → guard is permanent (no warning). See MIGRATION-v0.20.md.

CLI Flags

Example Output

$ npx docguard-cli generate

🔮 DocGuard Generate — my-project
   Scanning codebase to generate canonical documentation...

  Detected Stack:
    language: TypeScript ^5.0
    framework: Next.js ^14.0
    database: PostgreSQL
    orm: Drizzle 0.33
    testing: Vitest
    hosting: AWS Amplify

  ✅ ARCHITECTURE.md (4 components, 6 tech)
  ✅ DATA-MODEL.md (12 entities detected)
  ✅ ENVIRONMENT.md (18 env vars detected)
  ✅ TEST-SPEC.md (45 tests, 8/10 services mapped)
  ✅ SECURITY.md (auth: NextAuth.js)
  ✅ REQUIREMENTS.md (spec-kit aligned)
  ✅ AGENTS.md
  ✅ CHANGELOG.md
  ✅ DRIFT-LOG.md

  Generated: 9  Skipped: 0

🔍 Validators

DocGuard runs 24 automated validators on every guard check. Every one is language-aware as of v0.16 — patterns for Python (test_*.py), Rust (tests/*.rs), Go (*_test.go), Java (*Test.java), Ruby (*_spec.rb), PHP, and JS/TS all match.

Per-validator controls (in .docguard.json):

{
  "validators": {
    "test-spec": false,                 // disable (kebab-case OR camelCase both accepted)
    "freshness": true
  },
  "severity": {
    "todoTracking": "high",             // warnings fail CI
    "freshness": "low"                  // warnings ignored for exit code
  }
}

📄 Templates

DocGuard ships 18 professional templates with metadata, badges, and revision history:

🤖 AI Agent Support

DocGuard works with every major AI coding agent. All canonical docs are plain markdown — no vendor lock-in.

⚡ Slash Commands

DocGuard provides AI agent slash commands for integrated workflows. Installed automatically via docguard init or specify extension add docguard:

These commands are installed into your AI agent's command directory:

.github/commands/     → GitHub Copilot
.cursor/rules/        → Cursor
.gemini/commands/     → Google Gemini
.claude/commands/     → Claude Code
.agents/workflows/    → Antigravity

🧠 AI Skills (Enterprise)

Beyond slash commands, DocGuard provides 4 enterprise-grade AI skills — deep behavior protocols that tell AI agents not just what to run, but how to think, validate, and iterate. Skills are modeled after Spec Kit's skill architecture.

Workflow Hooks

DocGuard integrates into the spec-kit workflow as an automated quality gate:

Orchestration Scripts

For advanced users and CI/CD pipelines, DocGuard includes bash scripts with --json output:

📁 Examples

Three real-world projects to see DocGuard in action:

See examples/README.md for step-by-step instructions.

🧪 Testing

Test Suite

npm test    # 33 tests across 18 describe blocks

Covers all 15 CLI commands, project type detection, compliance profiles, JSON output format, and help completeness.

CI Matrix

Self-Validation (Dogfooding)

DocGuard runs its own guard, score, diff, diagnose, and badge commands against itself in CI — ensuring the tool passes its own checks.

⚙️ CI/CD Integration

Full recipes: see docs-canonical/CI-RECIPES.md for guard, auto-fix (commits mechanical fixes back to PRs), nightly sync, score-on-PR, and pre-commit configs.

GitHub Actions — Guard (most common)

name: DocGuard Guard
on: [pull_request, push]
permissions: { pull-requests: write }   # for the sticky PR comment (optional)
jobs:
  docguard:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with: { fetch-depth: 0 }
      - uses: raccioly/docguard@v0.12.0
        with:
          command: guard

On pull requests, guard mode also gives inline PR feedback (both default on):

Both run even when guard fails — that's when the feedback matters. Prefer native code-scanning integration? docguard guard --format sarif uploads straight to GitHub Code Scanning via github/codeql-action/upload-sarif.

GitHub Actions — Auto-Fix (commits mechanical fixes back)

name: DocGuard Auto-Fix
on: { pull_request: { types: [opened, synchronize, reopened] } }
permissions: { contents: write, pull-requests: write }
jobs:
  autofix:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    if: github.event.pull_request.head.repo.full_name == github.repository
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
        with:
          ref: ${{ github.event.pull_request.head.ref }}
          token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
          fetch-depth: 0
      - uses: raccioly/docguard@v0.12.0
        with: { command: fix, auto-commit: 'true', comment-on-pr: 'true' }

Pre-commit Hook

npx docguard-cli hooks --type pre-commit

Workflow starters (copy directly)

Two ready-to-use templates ship with the Spec Kit extension and as standalone files:

• extensions/spec-kit-docguard/templates/github-workflows/docguard-guard.yml — mandatory CI gate
• extensions/spec-kit-docguard/templates/github-workflows/docguard-autofix.yml — PR auto-fix

✨ What's New

Recent highlights across the v0.16 → v0.19 line:

• docguard explain <validator> — docguard explain freshness prints purpose, rules, common failures, and fix recipes for any of the 24 validators. No need to dig into source.
• docguard memory --diff — surface what changed in your canonical docs between two refs (HEAD~10..HEAD by default). Great for code review and changelog drafting.
• docguard score --diff — see exactly which validators moved the score up or down between two commits. Pinpoints regressions without re-running the full suite by hand.
• docguard upgrade --apply --pr — when the config schema bumps, DocGuard migrates .docguard.json for you and (optionally) opens a PR with the change.
• Language-aware traceability — both docguard trace and the guard-time Traceability validator understand Python, Rust, Go, Java, Ruby, and PHP layouts in addition to JS/TS, via a shared pattern set (cli/shared-trace-patterns.mjs) so the two never drift apart.
• Per-validator severity overrides — escalate freshness to high for production repos, demote doc-quality to low for prototypes. Configurable per-project.
• JSON Schema for .docguard.json — IDE autocomplete, in-line docs, and validation via $schema. Shipped in the package at schemas/docguard-config.schema.json.
• Version pin (docguardVersion + --pin) — pin the CLI version your project supports so CI fails loudly if someone bumps DocGuard without re-running the suite.
• Cross-process plan cache — repeated runs reuse the validator plan across processes when the working tree hasn't changed. ~30% faster guard runs on typical repos.
• Headless-aware banner — --quiet, --format json, --write, and --changed-only automatically suppress the banner so JSON output stays parse-clean.
• npm-pack smoke gate — every release now extracts the actual tarball and runs the CLI end-to-end before publish, catching missing-file regressions.

See CHANGELOG.md for the full history.

📁 File Structure

your-project/
├── .specify/                        # Spec Kit (if using specify init)
│   ├── specs/
│   │   └── 001-feature/
│   │       ├── spec.md              # Requirements (FR-IDs, user stories)
│   │       ├── plan.md              # Implementation plan
│   │       └── tasks.md             # Task breakdown
│   ├── memory/
│   │   └── constitution.md          # Project principles
│   └── templates/
│
├── docs-canonical/                  # CDD canonical docs (the "blueprint")
│   ├── ARCHITECTURE.md              # System design, components
│   ├── DATA-MODEL.md                # Database schemas
│   ├── SECURITY.md                  # Auth, permissions, secrets
│   ├── TEST-SPEC.md                 # Required tests, coverage
│   ├── ENVIRONMENT.md               # Environment variables
│   └── REQUIREMENTS.md              # Spec-kit aligned FR/SC IDs
│
├── docs-implementation/             # Current state (optional)
│   ├── KNOWN-GOTCHAS.md
│   ├── TROUBLESHOOTING.md
│   ├── RUNBOOKS.md
│   └── CURRENT-STATE.md
│
├── AGENTS.md                        # AI agent behavior rules
├── CHANGELOG.md                     # Change tracking
├── DRIFT-LOG.md                     # Documented deviations
├── llms.txt                         # AI-friendly summary
└── .docguard.json                   # DocGuard configuration

⚙️ Configuration

Create .docguard.json in your project root (auto-generated by docguard init):

{
  "projectName": "my-project",
  "version": "0.4",
  "profile": "standard",
  "projectType": "webapp",
  "validators": {
    "structure": true,
    "docsSync": true,
    "drift": true,
    "changelog": true,
    "testSpec": true,
    "security": true,
    "environment": true,
    "docQuality": true,
    "specKit": true
  }
}

See Configuration Guide for all options.

🔬 Research Credits

DocGuard's quality evaluation and documentation generation patterns are informed by peer-reviewed research from the University of Arizona and the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC), U.S. Department of Defense:

• AITPG — AI-driven Test Plan Generator using Multi-Agent Debate and RAG (Lopez et al., IEEE TSE 2026)
• TRACE — Telecom Root Cause Analysis through Calibrated Explainability (Lopez et al., IEEE TMLCN 2026)

Lead researcher: Martin Manuel Lopez · ORCID 0009-0002-7652-2385

See CONTRIBUTING.md for full citations.

⭐ Star History

📄 License

MIT — Free to use, modify, and distribute.

Made with ❤️ by Ricardo Accioly