---
name: nomarchy
description: Development and maintenance workflow for the Nomarchy NixOS-based distribution (this repository). Use this skill for ANY change to this repo — new features, bug fixes, theming or visual work (Hyprland, Waybar, rofi, wallpapers, palettes), NixOS/Home-Manager module changes, flake lock bumps, theme imports, docs updates, backlog grooming, or loop iterations. Trigger even for "small" or "obvious" changes; the whole point of this skill is that no change ships without climbing the verification ladder, and small changes are where verification gets skipped.
---

# Nomarchy Development Skill

Nomarchy's promise to its user: a rock-stable, fully functional, beautiful
workstation that is reproducible, easy to recover, and never requires the
user to become a Nix expert. Every rule below exists to protect that promise.
A change that works but degrades stability, aesthetics, or user-simplicity is
a regression, not a feature.

## 0. Read the authoritative docs first

This skill is an enforcer, not the workflow itself. The workflow lives in the
repo and is the single source of truth:

- `CLAUDE.md` — entry point, project conventions
- `agent/LOOP.md` — the iteration loop and the V0–V3 verification ladder
- `agent/` (remaining files) — philosophy, conventions, memory, backlog
- `docs/TESTING.md` — VM instructions, the regression checklist, known
  environment gotchas

At the start of any work session in this repo, read `CLAUDE.md` and
`agent/LOOP.md` before touching code. Read `docs/TESTING.md` before running
any VM test. If this skill and those docs ever disagree, the repo docs win —
then fix the discrepancy in the same or a follow-up commit so they can't
disagree twice.

## 1. Preflight (once per session)

Before starting work, establish what verification tier this environment can
reach, so you never promise verification you can't deliver:

1. Linux x86_64 host? `/dev/kvm` present and readable?
2. Enough free disk for an image/ISO build (multi-GB)?
3. Network access for a cold Nix store?

If the environment cannot reach V2 (no KVM, no disk, etc.): say so
immediately, do the V0/V1 work honestly, mark the change **"V2 pending"**
exactly as you would mark a hardware-blocked change "V3 pending" (see §4),
and stop short of claiming the change is done. Never simulate, guess, or
describe what a VM test "would" show.

## 2. The verification ladder (enforcement rules)

Climb the V0–V3 ladder as defined in `agent/LOOP.md`. This skill adds three
non-negotiable enforcement rules on top:

1. **V2 is mandatory for anything user-visible.** If a user of the installed
   system could perceive the change — behavior, layout, colors, keybinds,
   timing, error messages — it must be exercised in the local VM before
   commit. Docs-only, comment-only, or agent-notes changes may stop at the
   tier LOOP.md assigns them; user-visible changes may not.
2. **Every "done" report names the tier reached and shows the evidence.**
   Evidence means: the command run and its relevant output, the checklist
   items exercised, and for visual work the screenshots viewed (§3). "It
   builds" is a V1 claim, not a V2 claim. Never let a report imply a higher
   tier than was actually reached.
3. **A failed or flaky test is a result, not an obstacle.** Distinguish real
   failures from environment flakes using the known-gotchas section of
   `docs/TESTING.md` (e.g. no-KVM slowness, missing guest GL). If you cannot
   confidently classify a failure, report it as unresolved — do not retry
   until green and report only the green run.
4. **VM runs are headless and unattended.** Use the repo's headless
   harness — `tools/test-live-iso.sh` and `tools/test-install.sh` for
   boot/install runs, `tools/vm/qmp.py` for programmatic VM control and
   `tools/vm/vncshot.py` for screen capture — never a graphical VM window
   or any flow that needs a human at the console. The human is not part of
   the test loop: do not pause mid-run to ask them to look at the VM, click
   something, or confirm what is on screen. A run must complete on its own
   and leave auditable artifacts behind (logs, serial console output, exit
   codes, screenshots), with every wait bounded by a timeout so a hang
   becomes a recorded failure instead of a stalled session. Prefer scripted
   assertions (process up, file exists, service/D-Bus state, the checks in
   `tools/`) over eyeballing; where judgment is genuinely needed — visual
   quality — *you* view the captured screenshots (§3), not the human. The
   human reviews evidence in the final report, never the live run.

### Regression scope after a change

Re-running the full checklist for every change wastes VM time; running
nothing invites regressions. Default rule:

- Always: the session-sanity items (boot to session, bar renders).
- Plus: every checklist item touching the layer you changed.
- Plus: the theming end-to-end item whenever theming plumbing changed,
  even indirectly (palette generation, symlinks, reload hooks).
- Lock bumps and toolchain changes: run the full checklist — their blast
  radius is unknowable by construction.

## 3. Visual verification protocol

Visual quality is a core feature of Nomarchy, so "it probably looks fine" is
never verification. A visual/UI change is not V2-verified until all of the
following are true:

1. **Before/after screenshots** of the changed surface were captured
   headlessly — `tools/theme-shot.nix` for reproducible theme renders,
   `tools/vm/vncshot.py` (driven via `tools/vm/qmp.py`) for captures from a
   running VM. No VM window, no human interaction. Capture the "before"
   from the base branch or prior generation, not from memory.
2. **Scripted checks first**: run `tools/check-theme-contrast.py` and
   `tools/audit-theme-design.py` against the affected theme(s) before any
   eyeballing — machine-checkable legibility/design violations should never
   survive to the human-judgment stage. Use `tools/vm/gap-analysis.py`
   where it applies.
3. **Two themes**: repeat the "after" capture under at least two themes, one
   with a generated palette and one whole-swap theme (e.g. summer-night).
   These exercise different code paths in the bar/launcher theming; a change
   that looks right under one can silently break the other.
4. **You actually viewed the images** — open the screenshot files and look
   at them. State concretely what you inspected: alignment, spacing,
   contrast/legibility against the palette, icon rendering, no clipped or
   overlapping elements, and that the change looks intentional next to the
   "before".
5. Keep the screenshots in the run's working area and reference their paths
   in the report, so the human can audit the same evidence.

If the VM cannot render the surface faithfully (known GL/compositor gaps in
the guest — see `docs/TESTING.md`), that specific visual aspect is
hardware-blocked: verify everything the VM *can* show, and queue the rest
per §4.

## 4. Hardware-blocked checks

Some checks genuinely require real hardware (GPU behavior, multi-monitor
hotplug, audio devices, power/suspend, firmware). For those:

1. Add an entry to `agent/HARDWARE-QUEUE.md` with: what changed, **exact**
   reproduction steps a human can follow verbatim, the expected observation
   (what "pass" looks like), and the commit hash once known.
2. Mark the commit body **"V3 pending: <one-line summary>"**.
3. Say it plainly in your report. A hardware-blocked check is not a failure
   and not something to hide — hiding it is the failure.
4. When the human reports back, close the queue entry in the next commit and
   record the outcome; if it failed on hardware, that's a new bug at the top
   of the backlog.

Do not use the hardware queue as an escape hatch: if a check *can* be done
in the VM, it must be. "The VM is slow" does not qualify.

## 5. Maintenance work

Maintenance is in scope for this skill and follows the same ladder:

- **Flake lock bumps**: treat as maximum-blast-radius changes. Build,
  boot the VM, run the full regression checklist, and do a visual
  spot-check of the session (themes can shift with upstream package
  changes). Never merge a lock bump on "it evaluates".
- **Theme imports / new themes**: import via `tools/import-palettes.py`,
  then the full §3 visual protocol; additionally verify the theme-switch
  round trip (into the new theme and back out).
- **Docs drift**: run `tools/check-option-docs.py` after any change that
  adds or modifies options, and fix drift in the same commit as the code
  change that created it. Doc-only fixes are V0 — but verify any command
  you document by actually running it.
- **Backlog grooming / agent-notes**: V0; keep entries consistent with the
  conventions in `agent/`.

## 6. Guarding the philosophy

Before committing, check the change against the distro's promises:

- **User is not a Nix expert.** If the change requires the user to write or
  read Nix to use the feature day-to-day, redesign it. Configuration the
  user touches must stay in the simple, documented surface the repo defines.
- **Rock-stable and recoverable.** Prefer boring, reproducible mechanisms
  over clever ones. Any change that could break boot or the session must
  have an obvious rollback story (NixOS generations count, but say so).
- **Aesthetics are load-bearing.** A functionally correct but visually
  regressive change fails review by definition — that's what §3 is for.

When a requested change conflicts with these promises, stop and raise the
conflict instead of implementing it quietly.

## 6.5 Token economy: delegate machinery, keep judgment

Not every step needs the smartest model. Use subagents to route mechanical
work to cheap models and keep expensive reasoning where it pays. The repo
defines two in `.claude/agents/`:

- **nomarchy-scout** (haiku, read-only): finding where things are defined,
  mapping which files touch a subsystem, scanning build logs and serial
  output for error lines, docs-vs-code drift sweeps. Use it for any pure
  information-gathering step instead of reading files into the main
  context yourself — it keeps the main context small, which matters more
  than the token price on long loops.
- **nomarchy-runner** (haiku, executes the harness): builds, VM boots,
  screenshot capture, the scripted `tools/` checks. It runs commands and
  returns exit codes, logs, and artifact paths — nothing more.

The dividing line is **evidence vs. judgment**. Cheap models gather
evidence; they never make verification claims. The following always stay
with the main (smart) model and are never delegated downward:

- deciding what to test and what the regression scope is (§2)
- interpreting an ambiguous or flaky failure (§2 rule 3)
- viewing screenshots and judging visual quality (§3) — aesthetic judgment
  is exactly the kind of work small models do badly, and it's load-bearing
  for this distro
- writing non-trivial Nix (module structure, overlays, cross-cutting
  refactors)
- the final review of the diff and the §7 report

Practical guidance: delegation is not free — each subagent has its own
context and the tokens multiply — so delegate when the work is mechanical
*or* would pollute the main context with bulk (log files, wide file
scans), not reflexively for every small step. A one-file read is cheaper
done directly. When a scout/runner result surprises you, spot-check it
yourself before building on it: cheap models are allowed to be wrong about
hard things, which is precisely why they're not allowed to make claims.

### Fanning out worktree agents (parallel V0/V1 work)

When several NEXT items are independent and don't need the VM, spread them
across worktree-isolated subagents that run in parallel — but keep the
token cost down with these habits (each is a real lever, not a nicety):

- **Match the model to the task, not the tier.** A backlog item whose spec
  is already written (exact files, exact fixes) is *well-specified* →
  **sonnet**, not opus. Reserve opus for genuine multi-step reasoning
  (novel Nix, cross-cutting design, an ambiguous failure). Haiku for bulk
  mechanical. Picking sonnet over opus for a spec'd task is the single
  biggest saving.
- **Point at the spec; don't restate it.** The brief should say "the spec
  is in `agent/BACKLOG.md` #NN — implement it, don't re-derive," plus only
  the *constraints* (scope files, branch, no-VM, no-push). A cold agent
  re-reading the whole design into its own context is the tokens you're
  trying to avoid.
- **Disjoint file lanes.** Partition the items so no two agents touch the
  same file (map the touched files first). Zero shared files = zero merge
  conflicts at landing = no reconciliation tokens. If two items must share
  a file (README, flake.nix, rofi.nix), give both to one agent or keep one
  for yourself.
- **Isolation + you own landing.** Run each agent with `isolation:
  worktree`; it commits to its own branch and **never pushes or touches
  `main`/`v1`**. You review each diff, cherry-pick onto `main`, and do the
  bookkeeping. Parallel pushers race on `main`; a single landing agent
  doesn't. (Clean up: `git worktree remove --force` + `git branch -D` the
  branch and its `worktree-…` sibling after landing.)
- **Lean on scriptable checks as the primary evidence.** Where a
  deterministic `tools/` check or a `checks.*` guard already proves the
  property (e.g. `check-theme-contrast.py` for a palette fix,
  `option-docs` for a doc row), that near-free run *is* the V0/V1
  evidence — don't spend a VM render to re-confirm what the script already
  asserts.
- **Batch V2 at the end, once.** Visual/behavioural items delegated at
  V0/V1 come back "V2 pending." Don't boot the VM per item — collect the
  landed changes and do **one** `theme-shot`/`test-install` pass covering
  all of them. The VM render + screenshot review is the most expensive
  token sink in the loop; amortise it.
- **Re-verify on `main`, but leanly.** After cherry-picking, confirm the
  agent's V0/V1 on the merged tree — but a tiny, obviously-correct diff
  needs a targeted build, not a full re-run of everything. Trust-but-spot-
  check scales; blind re-running doesn't.

The judgment that never delegates (§ above) still holds: *you* review every
diff before it lands, and *you* make the product calls (a "finish vs.
quarantine" decision is yours or Bernardo's, never a cheap agent's).

## 7. Reporting format

End every unit of work with a short report containing:

1. What changed (one paragraph, plain language).
2. Verification tier reached, with evidence (commands + key output,
   checklist items run, screenshot paths viewed).
3. Anything pending: "V2 pending" (environment) or "V3 pending" (hardware,
   with queue entry reference).
4. Follow-ups added to the backlog, if any.
