Declarative Config and make doctor: Phase 1 of Standards Tooling

Mar 25, 2026

C65 LLC

Two new additions land in Phase 1 of our standards tooling roadmap: .standards.yml — a declarative configuration file that replaces the old shell-variable-based approach — and make doctor, a health check command that audits your project’s standards setup and tells you exactly what to fix.

.standards.yml: Declarative Standards Configuration

Previously, consumer projects configured standards through a .standards-config file using KEY=value shell variables. It worked, but it was limited: no schema, no version field, no way to express nested settings like coverage thresholds.

.standards.yml replaces that with a proper YAML config:

# .standards.yml — Project standards configuration
version: 1

languages:
  - python
  - typescript

agents:
  - claude-code
  - cursor
  - copilot

role: service

coverage:
  minimum: 95
  domain: 100

architecture: clean
security: strict

What each field controls

Field	Purpose
`version`	Config schema version — enables forward-compatible migrations
`languages`	Which language standards to load during assembly
`agents`	Which AI agents get config files during setup and sync
`role`	Project type — `service`, `library`, `app`, or `data-pipeline`
`coverage.minimum`	Overall test coverage floor (%)
`coverage.domain`	Domain-layer coverage requirement (%)
`architecture`	`clean` enforces Clean Architecture; `none` removes constraints
`security`	`strict` makes P0/P1 merge-blocking; `moderate` warns on P1

The setup.sh script generates .standards.yml automatically during installation using language detection. You can edit it afterward to adjust agents, coverage thresholds, or architecture mode. sync-standards.sh reads it on every run to assemble only the configs you need.

The legacy .standards-config format remains supported for backward compatibility — make doctor will warn you if you’re on the old format.

make doctor: Standards Health Check

make doctor runs a seven-point audit of your project’s standards setup and produces a scored report:

Standards Health Check
=======================================

  ✅ PASS  Configuration          .standards.yml found (version 1)
  ✅ PASS  Claude Code            CLAUDE.md present
  ✅ PASS  Cursor                 .cursorrules present
  ⚠️  WARN  Copilot               .github/copilot-instructions.md missing
  ✅ PASS  Checksums              All config checksums match
  ⚠️  WARN  Languages             Detected 'go' not in .standards.yml
  ✅ PASS  Submodule              .standards/ is a valid git repo
  ❌ FAIL  Git Hooks              post-merge hook not installed
  ✅ PASS  Gitignore              All required entries present

=======================================
  Score: 6/9 (67%)

  Fixes needed:
    -> Run: make setup-agents  (to install missing Copilot config)
    -> Add: 'go' to .standards.yml languages list
    -> Run: make setup  (to install git hooks for automatic standards sync)

What it checks

Configuration — .standards.yml exists (or legacy .standards-config)
Agent files — each agent declared in config has its expected file on disk
Checksums — .standards-checksums exists and config hashes match stored values, detecting unauthorized edits
Languages — runs detect-languages.sh and compares against declared languages, flagging gaps
Submodule — .standards/ is a valid initialized git repo (skipped when running in the standards repo itself)
Git hooks — .git/hooks/post-merge exists and references standards sync
Gitignore — .gitignore contains .standards-pending/ and *.pre-standards-setup

Every warning and failure includes a concrete fix command so you know exactly what to run.

Try It

Update your standards submodule and run the health check:

cd .standards && git pull origin main && cd ..
make doctor

If you haven’t installed standards yet:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/c65llc/coding-standards/main/install.sh | bash
make doctor

A perfect score means your project is fully configured, checksums are clean, and automatic sync is in place via git hooks.