Lit Lint

Core Rule

Lint reports; it does not repair by inventing. It surfaces where the vault has drifted — orphans, broken links, claims without locators, quotes without page numbers — and names the fix, but it never closes a gap by fabricating the missing piece. A summary missing a locator gets flagged, not given a guessed page number. A .bib key with no summary gets flagged, not given an imagined one. This is a read-only, advisory pass: it never modifies sources/ and never silently auto-edits the vault. The output is a worklist for the author or for /lit-ingest to act on, not a set of edits.

When to Use

Invoke with /lit-lint when:

• After a batch of /lit-ingest runs, to catch what slipped (orphans, missing locators).
• Before /literature-review, so the synthesis draws on a clean, consistent vault.
• Periodically, to find cross-source contradictions worth resolving before they reach the draft.
• After editing references.bib by hand, to re-check summary ↔ .bib alignment.

Read-only by default. With an explicit --fix argument it may propose (still not auto-apply) mechanical repairs like adding a missing [[wikilink]] stub — but never a fabricated locator, quote, finding, or DOI.

Process

Phase 1 — Inventory

Build the picture before judging it:

1. Read VAULT.md (the schema the vault must conform to).
2. List vault/summaries/*.md, the keys in references.bib, and every page under vault/concepts/ and vault/entities/.
3. Collect every [[wikilink]] target across all pages, and every \cite-able key.
4. Read vault/index.md and vault/log.md to know what should be present.

Phase 2 — Orphan & linkage checks

• Summary without a .bib key — a vault/summaries/<key>.md whose <key> has no entry in references.bib. Either the entry is missing or the filename is wrong.
• .bib key without a summary — an entry in references.bib with no vault/summaries/<key>.md. It may be legitimately metadata-only, but it should at least have a stub page; flag it.
• Broken [[wikilinks]] — a link whose target page does not exist. (A deliberate stub is fine per VAULT.md — distinguish "not written yet, intentional" from "typo / renamed page".)
• Index drift — a summary that exists on disk but is missing from vault/index.md, or an index line pointing to a page that is gone.
• Filename ≠ cite key — the page's bibkey: frontmatter must equal its filename and its .bib key (VAULT.md Rule 4).

Phase 3 — Claim & quote hygiene

Per summary page:

• Claims missing locators — a bullet under "Key claims" with no p./§ locator. A claim the vault cannot point to a page for is not yet citable.
• Quotes without page numbers — a > quote with no — p. <n>. Floating quotes are a cardinal-rule violation waiting to happen; flag every one.
• Findings without numbers/locators — a "Findings" section that asserts a result with no figure/locator to anchor it.
• [VALUE — verify] still open — surface every unresolved placeholder (in summaries and in the proposed .bib metadata) so the author knows what still needs reading. These are honest flags, not errors — but they are open work.

Phase 4 — Cross-source contradiction scan

Compare claims across summaries (and within each concepts/ page's "Tensions" section) for sources that disagree — e.g. one reporting a verification gate eliminates hallucinated tool calls while another reports only a partial reduction. Report these as contradictions to resolve, with both locators. Do not adjudicate which source is right — that is the author's call (and a Protected Claim if it changes the argument); lint only surfaces the seam. A genuine disagreement between real sources is a finding, often the seam a contribution exploits — note it, do not erase it.

Phase 5 — Staleness & status

• metadata-only never upgraded — a page still status: metadata-only whose full text is now in sources/. Candidate for /lit-ingest to upgrade.
• Stale entries — a summary whose source_file: no longer exists in sources/, or whose ingested: date long predates a changed source.
• skimmed pages — flag pages marked skimmed so the author knows coverage is partial before citing them.

Phase 6 — Report

Produce the categorized findings list (below). Each finding: locator + the precise fix. Nothing is auto-applied. Append one line to vault/log.md (2026-06-03 lint — N findings (orphans 2, missing-locators 4, broken-links 1)) so the health check is part of the record — this is the one write lint makes.

Output Format

# Lit-Lint — Vault Health Report

## Summary
- Summaries: 12 · references.bib keys: 14 · concepts: 5 · entities: 7
- Findings: 11  (Orphans 3 · Missing locators 4 · Broken links 1 · Contradictions 1 · Stale 2)

## Orphans
| # | Item | Problem | Fix |
|---|------|---------|-----|
| 1 | references.bib `halluc2022` | no vault/summaries/halluc2022.md | ingest it, or add a metadata-only stub |
| 2 | vault/summaries/tooluse2023.md | no `tooluse2023` in references.bib | add the .bib entry, or rename the page |

## Broken [[wikilinks]]
| # | Source page | Link | Likely cause |
|---|-------------|------|--------------|
| 1 | summaries/tooluse2023.md | [[verification-gateing]] | typo → [[verification-gating]] |

## Claims missing locators / quotes without pages
| # | Page | Item | Fix |
|---|------|------|-----|
| 1 | summaries/halluc2022.md | claim "hallucination is prevalent" | add p./§ locator from source |
| 2 | summaries/halluc2022.md | quote "models confabulate freely" | add — p. <n> or remove |

## Cross-source contradictions (resolve — do not auto-edit)
| # | Source A (locator) | Source B (locator) | The disagreement |
|---|--------------------|--------------------|------------------|
| 1 | tooluse2023 p.4: gate "eliminates" hallucinated calls | halluc2022 p.7: only "reduced" | strength mismatch — pick the calibrated claim |

## Stale / status
| # | Page | Issue | Fix |
|---|------|-------|-----|
| 1 | summaries/halluc2022.md | metadata-only, full text now in sources/ | run /lit-ingest to upgrade |

## Open [VALUE — verify]
- summaries/tooluse2023.md — DOI still [VALUE — verify]

End with the tally (clean / findings / open placeholders). Never report the vault "clean" while orphans, broken links, missing locators, or open [VALUE — verify] markers remain.

Pairs With

• /lit-ingest — the fixer for most findings: re-ingest to upgrade a metadata-only page, add a missing locator, or create a missing summary.
• /lit-briefing — consumes a clean vault; run lint first so the briefing's gap analysis is not muddied by orphans.
• vault-maintainer agent — dispatch it to work through a long findings list (re-ingest, re-link) so the main thread stays clean.
• citation-gate.sh — the .tex-side analogue: it proves \cite keys resolve in references.bib; lint proves the vault layer behind them is consistent.
• /citation-audit — the structural .bib health pass; complementary to lint's vault-page focus.

Notes

• Read-only / advisory. Lint never edits sources/ and never auto-rewrites a vault page; its only write is the one-line vault/log.md entry recording the run.
• It flags, never fabricates — a missing locator/quote/DOI is reported, never guessed. This is the cardinal rule applied to vault maintenance.
• A contradiction between two real sources is a finding, not a defect to paper over — often the seam a contribution exploits. Resolving it (which to believe, how to frame it) is the author's call.
• The cross-source contradiction scan is Reasoner-tier judgment (see CLAUDE.md → Model Selection); the orphan/link/locator checks are mechanical.
• A high "open [VALUE — verify]" count is a finding about reading backlog, not a defect in the vault — report it as such.