deepseek-harness/docs/rfc/proposed/process/2026-06-20-discover-package-inventory.md

RFC: Discover package inventories instead of maintaining static lists

Status: proposed

Problem

Package and gate inventories are repeated by hand. The package cookbook tells authors to update several files. The package README carries a hand-written dependency graph. CI and development docs can drift from the actual doc-sync subcommands when new gates are added. tsconfig.build.json and the root tsconfig.json each hand-list every package as explicit project references — two identical sets that grow in lockstep, so a single generator can emit both — and tsconfig.base.json's paths map hand-lists the per-group glob fan-out. knip.json restates a per-package entry stanza for each package that gains an *.e2e.ts suite — byte-identical overrides that exist only because the shared packages/*/* stanza omits the e2e glob (an entry glob matching no files is inert, so the default stanza could carry it for every package). These lists are small today, but every new package creates another manual synchronization point.

The package hierarchy already removed several of these by hand: scripts/publint-all.ts now derives its list from the packages/<group>/<pkg> layout, and the two tsconfig paths maps collapsed to one @deepseek-ai/dsh-* wildcard. What remains is the inventory that cannot be globbed away — chiefly tsconfig.build.json's project references, which TypeScript requires as an explicit array (no wildcard form).

Static lists are appropriate when they encode policy; they are needless friction when they duplicate manifest data or layout facts that already exist in package.json, workspace globs, or the package hierarchy.

Proposal

Make the remaining package/gate inventories discoverable. A single canonical source — the packages/<group>/<pkg> hierarchy plus package manifests — should drive tsconfig.build.json's references, the module graph, and any other full-package list, with a generate-and-verify step (the existing gen-module-graph / gen-cordis-catalog pattern: a generator writes the artifact, a --check mode in hygiene/doc-sync fails on a stale committed copy). Module graph generation already reads package manifests. doc-sync should be the one command that defines and prints its sub-gates, with docs linking to that command rather than restating a second list.

The hierarchy does not need to encode every fact about a package, but it should encode the broad maintenance policy: core/product packages, integrations, capability seams, and support/test/example packages should not all require a hand-maintained exception list before scripts can tell them apart.

One cataloged item needs no generator at all: folding the e2e entry glob into knip's default stanza deletes the per-package restatements outright.

Acceptance criteria

• tsconfig.build.json project references are generated from the hierarchy (a generator emits them; a --check gate fails when the committed copy is stale), rather than hand-maintained.
• Adding a package does not require editing a static package list for any gate.
• Docs describe the source of truth rather than repeating generated inventories.
• CI invokes the aggregate commands and lets those commands own their sub-gate lists.
• knip.json carries a per-package override only where it encodes real information (an extra entry file, an ignored dependency), never a restatement of the default stanza.

Risks

Discovery scripts can become too clever. The implementation should stay boring: read manifests, filter on explicit fields, print the resolved list, and fail loud. The payoff is removing manual inventory drift, not inventing a build system.