Archkeel

The agent declares before it submits. The check is deterministic.

Archkeel checks architecture boundaries and declared changes in AI-assisted code. It compares an accepted commit with a candidate, checks their scans against the configured contract, and verifies that the candidate matches an expectation published before its first submission.

It catches two failure modes that finding-only diffs miss:

• the architecture changed without being declared;
• the scanner saw less of the program, so the result looks clean only because the graph became blinder.

Try the demo · Onboard your project · How it works · Reference · Roadmap

Implemented and planned work is tracked in the roadmap.

Why Archkeel

An agent can keep tests green and introduce no new architecture finding while making the code harder to analyze. If the gate compares finding identities only, that change passes.

Fixture A is the smallest example:

 def run(key: str) -> int:
-    return first() + second()
+    handlers = {"first": first, "second": second}
+    return handlers[key]()

The refactor introduces no new forbidden import, cycle, or private crossing. But static call resolution gets worse:

expectation_fulfilled: FAIL
regression check failed in calls_unresolved: 0->1
regression check failed in unresolved_ratio: 0/2->1/1

Archkeel compares raw measurements as well as finding counts and fingerprints. The ratio check uses integer cross-multiplication, never rounded percentages:

U_candidate × T_accepted <= U_accepted × T_candidate   (when both T > 0)

What the gate adds

• Precommitment with evidence. The agent publishes the intended change before it submits the candidate. Git ancestry and host records prove the order; author timestamps do not.
• Coverage-aware regression checks. A disappearing edge is not mistaken for an improvement just because a finding disappeared with it.
• Explicit uncertainty. An incomplete scan, broken lock, empty scope, or runtime mismatch returns exit 2 with a diagnostic. Unknown never becomes green.

Archkeel complements tests, linters, and human review. It does not replace any of them. Its job is narrower: keep architecture changes declared, observable, and mechanically checkable.

Review surface

The HTML report is designed for a reviewer making a merge decision:

• Decision first. PASS, REJECT, or UNVERIFIABLE and one sentence explaining it are visible before details, in the HTML report and in the terminal.
• No blended score. Scan completeness, contract compliance, expectation matching, Git order and publication order remain separate verdicts.
• Unknown stays visible. Missing or invalid evidence includes the affected subject, unknown claim, and remedy.
• Evidence stays inspectable. Exact counts, fingerprints, source locations, digests, and runtime provenance remain available beside the verdict.

Try the demo

The demo builds three small Git repositories and runs the real checks. Fixture A is rejected because the call graph got blinder, Fixture B because its expectation was published too late, and Fixture C passes.

git clone https://github.com/rapiddweller/archkeel.git
cd archkeel
make demo

make demo-screenshots OUTPUT=<directory> also captures each HTML report as PNG and each terminal view as SVG.

Onboard your project

Requirements: Python 3.11+ and a Git repository with at least one commit.

uvx archkeel skill install claude    # or codex
uvx archkeel init
uvx archkeel validate

init observes the only top-level package and writes archkeel.toml, architecture-contract.json and docs/architecture/architecture.md. It proposes one component per subpackage and forbids every component pair that is not imported today. Each rule starts with a TODO: rationale, so validate lists every decision that remains, each with a JSON Pointer. Give the prompt in docs/onboarding.md to your coding agent, or work through the list yourself. The rule catalog is in docs/rules.md.

To install it permanently instead, run pip install archkeel. Every command explains itself with archkeel <command> --help.

Quickstart

Observe the current repository:

archkeel report

The command writes the canonical architecture.json and a self-contained architecture.report.html beside it. A terminal shows the decision and verdicts; pipes and --json receive the JSON result.

Check a candidate against its published expectation:

archkeel check \
  --root /repo \
  --baseline "$B" \
  --expectation-commit "$E" \
  --head "$H" \
  --expected expectation.json \
  --expected-digest "$DIGEST" \
  --accepted-branch main \
  --branch candidate

Run the Python version required by the repository being scanned. A mismatch is reported as runtime_mismatch with exit 2, not as broken source code.

How it works

flowchart TB
    B["Locked accepted state"] --> O["Observe accepted + candidate"]
    E["Expectation published first"] --> H["Candidate submitted"]
    H --> O
    O --> C{"Deterministic check"}
    C --> P["0 · pass"]
    C --> R["1 · reject"]
    C --> U["2 · unverifiable"]

    classDef locked fill:#141414,stroke:#C5F82A,color:#E8E8E2
    classDef declared fill:#141414,stroke:#5EEAD4,color:#E8E8E2
    classDef candidate fill:#141414,stroke:#8A8A84,color:#E8E8E2
    classDef gate fill:#C5F82A,stroke:#C5F82A,color:#0D1F05
    classDef result fill:#141414,stroke:#2A2A28,color:#E8E8E2

    class B locked
    class E declared
    class H,O candidate
    class C gate
    class P,R,U result

A check answers three independent questions. It never compresses them into a single score.

Exit codes

Every exit 2 diagnostic contains:

kind · subject · unknown_claim · remedy

A broken lock is therefore not interpreted as an empty accepted state.

The M → B → E → H protocol

gitGraph
    commit id: "M · accepted"
    commit id: "B · lock only"
    branch candidate
    commit id: "E · expectation only"
    commit id: "H · implementation"

Agent workflow

1. Start from the lock commit B.
2. Write the intended architecture change and commit it alone as E.
3. Publish E before submitting implementation work.
4. Implement the change in one or more commits ending at H.
5. Run archkeel check. Fix the code or revise the proposal in a new protocol cycle; do not rewrite protected inputs inside H.

Fixture B writes its expectation after implementation by deriving it from the observed delta. Its architecture findings are otherwise clean. Archkeel still rejects it:

host_order: FAIL
expectation_fulfilled: FAIL
expectation was not published before the first candidate submission

Precommitment proves "published before submission." It does not prove that no private edit existed before publication.

Host evidence

In GitLab CI, Archkeel reads merge-request diff versions through glab to establish publication order.

For local testing, replay captured host records:

uv run archkeel check ... --host-records records.json

A local replay validates the record shape and behavior. It does not prove host authenticity.

Development

Run the complete project gate:

make check

This runs Ruff, strict mypy, pytest, and Archkeel's self-check.

Run the full release check, build both distributions, and install each one in isolation:

make release-check

Reproduce the protocol fixtures:

make fixtures

Archkeel checks itself

architecture-contract.json holds Archkeel to the rules it sells, and every rule was proven by a deliberate violation:

• Closed world. Seven components; every ordered pair is either one of the ten observed imports or forbidden with a rationale. The architecture guide explains each allowed edge in the single marked component graph.
• Deterministic core. ir and check never import adapters or presentation; the CLI is the composition root. The analyzer may import only archkeel.ir.model and archkeel.ir.codec.
• No dynamic shortcuts. getattr, hasattr, cast, eval, exec, dynamic imports and type: ignore are forbidden everywhere.
• Confined dependencies. packaging only in the analyzer runtime gate, rich only in the terminal view, rich_argparse only in the CLI.
• Complete and acyclic. Every module belongs to exactly one component, and components form no cycle.

make check reobserves the repository and compares it with fixtures/D-self; CI also runs archkeel validate and uploads the self-observation.

Current boundaries

Archkeel is deliberately strict about what it can prove:

• Competing implementations: review is still required when no declared rule or observed regression exposes them.
• Private crossings: only import records are checked. import pkg; pkg._member is not detected.
• Precommitment: publication order is proven; private editing order is not.
• Analyzer runtime: Archkeel's Python must be at least the target repository's Python.
• Acceptance: accept is a placeholder and returns exit 2.
• Onboarding: init detects one top-level package; other layouts need --source and --namespace. It cannot know why a boundary exists, so every rationale stays a decision.

Roadmap

Completed work and the ordered UI, CI and release plan live in docs/roadmap.md. Items remain planned until their listed evidence exists.

License

MIT © 2026 Rapiddweller Asia Co., Ltd.

Maintained by Alexander Kell.