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F0.5 — Standards charter (MCP · CLI · API · SQL · Broker)

The non-negotiable standards this program holds before implementation. Each standard maps to the cards it governs. “Cite” links are the authoritative spec; where a spec is internal, the charter itself is the citation.

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MCP

  • MCP 2025-06-18 compliance. Tools advertise inputSchema; reads also advertise outputSchema and return structuredContent. Source: MCP spec 2025-06-18 (tools, structured output, pagination). Governs: F3.1, F3.3, F3.4, F3.5.
  • Structured outputs for all read tools. Every read tool returns machine-typed content, not prose blobs, so agents parse without heuristics. Governs: F3.4, F3.5.
  • Paginated tools/list. Support cursor; never dump the full tool set unbounded. Governs: F3.2.
  • Compact schemas. Tool schemas trimmed to what the model needs; descriptions terse. Governs: F3.1. Ceiling: see budgets.md.
  • Streamable HTTP behavior. Long operations stream; the transport stays within MCP’s Streamable HTTP semantics. Governs: F3.x, F10.3.

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CLI

  • Consistent read flags. --view, --limit, --cursor mean the same thing everywhere. Governs: F4.3.
  • Connection reuse. Keep-alive HTTP agent on the API client — no fresh TCP/TLS per call. Governs: F4.2.
  • Fast start. Command modules lazy-loaded; driftless cold start is not gated by loading every command. Governs: F4.1.
  • Help by workflow. Help is organized around what the user is trying to do, not an alphabetical command dump. Governs: F4.4.

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API

  • Pagination + views contract. List endpoints take limit/cursor and a view (brief/full); brief is the default for lists. Governs: F2.1, F4.3, F5.2, F6.2.
  • Standard error contract. Predictable error shape and status codes across endpoints. Governs: F2.1.
  • Payload views standardized. One vocabulary for partial vs full payloads across the API. Governs: F2.1, F2.2.

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SQL

  • Filter and sort in SQL, not in memory. No “load all then filter/sort in Node.” Governs: F1.1, F5.1, F5.3, F6.1.
  • EXPLAIN/ANALYZE evidence required. Every hot-path query change ships a query plan showing index use and no full scans on large tables. Governs: F0.7, F1.x, F5.x, F6.x.
  • Anti-N+1. Batch related reads (history, backlinks, counts); query-count budget enforced. Governs: F1.4, F4338 (anti-N+1 tests), F5.1, F6.1.
  • Indexes are first-class. New hot filters/sorts get covering indexes in a migration. Governs: F1.2, F6.5.

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Nango / Broker

  • No agent scripting. Normal agents call broker operations/invoke/records; they do not author, edit, or deploy Nango integration scripts. That is a privileged, human-reviewed action. Governs: F7.0, and the skill routing F8.5.
  • Operation metadata is materialized. Don’t listActions live on every invoke; cache operation metadata and refresh deliberately. Governs: F7.2, F7.3.
  • Rate limits & transient failures are explicit. Nango 429s/5xx are retried with backoff and surfaced as typed errors, never as opaque failures. Governs: F7.5.
  • Output size is bounded. Broker records/action output is capped and paginated. Governs: F7.4.

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Rollout / backward compatibility

  • Backward-compatible defaults. New endpoints/params ship behind defaults that preserve existing behavior; old shapes keep working through the transition. Governs: F10.1.
  • Surface contracts are snapshotted. CLI/MCP/API contracts are snapshot-tested so a change that breaks a consumer fails CI, not production. Governs: F0.6, F8.7.
  • Staging → main with evidence. Optimizations move to main only with the gate evidence from gates.md attached. Governs: F10.1–F10.4.