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 across TypeScript project references, package docs, CI prose, Knip overrides, and snapshot scenario metadata. Most restate package layout, manifest data, aggregate command contents, or fixture files. Each new package or scenario therefore creates avoidable synchronization points.

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.

Two of the cataloged items need no generator at all: folding the e2e entry glob into knip's default stanza deletes the per-package restatements outright, and childSessions can be discovered from each scenario's fixture directory, leaving the scenario table to declare only policy (recorded, hasModelTurn, comparesLog) — and even those track fixture-derivable facts today (comparesLog ⟺ the committed log has entries beyond its header line; recorded ⟺ hasModelTurn with no replay.override.json sibling), so each new scenario class keeps adding knobs the fixture directory already answers.

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.
• Snapshot scenarios declare policy, not facts discoverable from their fixture directories.

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.