Toward Chatter 1.0

Status: Current Last updated: 2026-10-02 (commit 2d7e886b)

This is the current readiness record. Version 1.0 means a documented compatibility contract and reproducible evidence, not merely a release-number change. No date is promised here.

Where the numbers live

just spec-status reports the current spec counts (error specs by status, examples verified, deferred or failing) and the CHECK assessment summary. These are spec and example counts, not a count of independent validation rules. To inspect the deferred specs, run cargo run --manifest-path spec/Cargo.toml --bin spec_status -- --deferred: prioritize rules reachable through supported CHAT input, preserve legal and invalid examples together, and use the observation snapshot to adjudicate backend differences.

The generated CHECK assessment owns the current scope, adjudication counts, completion status and reopening criteria. This readiness record does not maintain a second CHECK status.

Release conditions

• Define the stable CLI, exit-code, JSON/schema and Rust API surfaces. State which surfaces remain experimental and test the chosen compatibility contract.
• Adjudicate every deferred spec for the stable surface. Implement missing behavior or document why the rule is deprecated, unreachable or deferred; do not activate a spec merely by changing its status.
• Ground CHECK obligations against an identified executable and fixture set. Keep deliberate divergences justified in the manifest. Every observed disagreement needs a spec or validator adjudication before data repair.
• Review typestate transitions at parsing, validation, repair and writing. Output-producing APIs must consume the evidence their operation requires; a curated label, parsed AST or recovered node is not proof of validity.
• Keep generated artifacts current and reader-facing documentation consistent with actual commands, validation behavior and release mechanics.
• Pass the established release gate and platform jobs on the exact release commit. Verify packaged artifacts and deployment using the release runbook.

Evidence boundaries already in place

These are properties of the code that the release conditions build on; each is a typed or gated boundary rather than a convention.

• CHECK mapping audit. It reads the compiled spec registry, renders only mapping evidence (unmapped or nonempty curated states) and has a report-currency integration gate. Explicit CLAN grounding cannot silently succeed without its wrapper.
• Source-bound diagnostic indexes. SourceIndex<'source> owns the line boundaries and immutably borrows their source; its constructor is the only way to pair them, so a line map from another source cannot be supplied. Indexed callers use enhance_errors_with_index. One-off lookups scan the source prefix; repeated batches use one explicit index (O(source bytes) construction, O(log lines) lookup).
• Prosodic validation. Word passes through a private ProsodicWord measurement before its prosodic checks. It borrows the word immutably and owns the stress counts and the first and last spoken positions; only its constructor can assemble them, so they cannot describe a different word or outlive a mutation.
• JSON conversion. JsonSchemaPolicy selects serialization after the shared named CHAT parse, so skipping schema validation cannot discard transcript identity or bypass E531.
• Deserialized model values need validation. CHAT text cannot construct an empty text, phonetic or shortening segment, so E251 is implemented at the model validation boundary (serde-constructed values), covered by test_e251_deserialized_word_content. A wrapper type’s name is not evidence that deserialized content is valid.
• Schema. The generated JSON schema is native Draft 2020-12, with $ref siblings kept as the dialect allows; consumers must support that dialect. The generated BracketedItem definition is exercised by generated_ref_siblings_enforce_tag_and_payload. just schema-gen is an explicit operation; the normal suite checks currency without writing it.
• Generated outputs preserve unchanged files. Generators publish through scripts/generate_if_changed.py (staging, atomic replace, identical bytes keep their mtime, a failed generator leaves the existing file). The spec artifact writer deletes only explicitly retired names in shared directories, and GeneratedDir proves exclusive generated ownership before pruning. just node-types-check and just grammar-generate-check verify these. See Testing.
• Publication set. The publication check derives every non-first-wave workspace package from Cargo metadata and requires publish = false for it; --metadata-only runs it without package assembly. It is evidence of publication policy and metadata only; full package and registry verification remain part of the release review.
• re2c backend. It borrows the caller’s source, owns only reconstructed subtoken text (Cow<str>) and has no production Box::leak. just verify-vendored-lexer confirms the committed lexer against the pinned generator. SinTier::from_tokens returns Result; JSON remains an unvalidated boundary, so utterance validation descends through %sin items to report empty tokens.

Reproducing the CHECK evidence

From the Chatter checkout:

cargo test -p talkbank-parser-tests --test integration check_mapping_audit:: --offline
cargo test -p talkbank-parser-tests --test integration check_validity_parity:: --offline
CHATTER_CLAN_RUN=/path/to/clan-run.sh \
  cargo test -p talkbank-parser-tests --test integration clan_check_grounding \
  --offline -- --ignored --nocapture

The wrapper resolves its default CHECK executable from the CLAN checkout; CLAN_BIN_DIR selects another binary directory. Retain the file-mode PTY wrapper. Record the CHECK executable, wrapper and parity manifest SHA-256 and the CLAN checkout HEAD with any result: the executable hash identifies what actually ran, while the checkout HEAD identifies only the source inspected. These results cover the committed fixture set, not all possible CHAT input.

This page last changed: 2026-10-02 (commit 2d7e886b). The whole book last changed: 2026-10-07 (commit 5e895791).