CI Guard

Repositories benefit from CI, but this skill is advisory. It checks for CI configuration and alerts when it is missing, while allowing research, prototypes, and intentionally local projects.

When to Activate

• At session start, after repository status is reported
• When a user clones or creates a new repo under repositories/
• When running /verify or /quality-gate in a repo without CI

How to Check

Run the check script against any repo:

uv run skills/ci-guard/scripts/check-ci.py <repo-path>

The script checks for common CI indicators and the research exemption.

CI Indicators (any one is sufficient)

Provider	Path
GitHub Actions	.github/workflows/ (with at least one .yml/.yaml)
GitLab CI	.gitlab-ci.yml
CircleCI	.circleci/config.yml
Jenkins	Jenkinsfile
Travis	.travis.yml
Azure	azure-pipelines.yml

Research Exemption

A repo is exempt from the CI requirement if:

1. A .research file exists in the repo root, OR
2. pyproject.toml contains purpose = "research" in [project.optional] or as a comment marker

To mark a repo as research: touch <repo>/.research

Alert Behavior

When CI is missing and the repo is not research:

1. Warn clearly at session start: "This repo has no CI configuration."
2. Suggest a starter workflow based on the detected stack (Python/Node/Rust/Go)
3. Reference the basecamp's own CI (.github/workflows/ci.yml) as a working template
4. Do not block work - this is an alert, not a gate

Starter Templates

Python (uv-based, matching basecamp conventions)

name: CI
on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  lint:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v6
      - run: uv python install 3.12
      - run: uv sync --group dev
      - run: uv run ruff check .
      - run: uv run ruff format --check .

  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: astral-sh/setup-uv@v6
      - run: uv python install 3.12
      - run: uv sync --group dev
      - run: uv run pytest -v

Node.js

name: CI
on:
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 20
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm test

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Forgetting CI on quick prototype repos	Use .research file for true prototypes, add CI for everything else
Adding CI but not running tests	CI without tests is a false safety net - at minimum lint
Blocking the user from working	This is an alert, not a blocker - warn and continue