ADR-0135 — The kit declares its layout in a manifest; the CLI reads it, never a hardcoded templates/ path

Context

ADR-0134 established that an additive accelerator must not dictate the mandatory kit's structure. The CLI violates this: it hardcodes the starter-kit's templates/ layout — initWorkspace copies templates/, applyUpdate syncs it, scaffoldSpec/scaffoldChangePlan materialize from templates/<artifact>.md, and checkWorkspace validates that a workspace has templates/. The dependency is inverted: the CLI's fixed paths block the kit from placing its artifact scaffolds where self-containment wants them (skill references/ for skill-specific scaffolds; a kit-chosen home for the shared loop artifacts). The held "#8 templates ↔ references" question and the CLI-coupling smell are the same problem.

Decision

The kit declares its layout in a manifest; the CLI reads the manifest and assumes no fixed path.

1. A kit manifest (at the kit root) maps each artifact/scaffold role to its path within the kit — spec, task, review, finding, change-plan, intake, inventory, adr, etc. The kit owns its layout: moving a template is a manifest edit, not a CLI change.
2. The CLI resolves the kit's layout through the manifest, never a hardcoded templates/ string, at the points that are actually path-coupled: update refreshes the kit-owned prefixes the manifest lists, and check validates the required paths it names. A manifest-less kit falls back to the built-in default so it never breaks (AC-004). (init copies the whole kit and new renders each artifact inline from its frozen format — neither is templates/-path-coupled; see the Correction.)
3. Two homes, both manifest-declared. The shared loop artifacts (spec/task/review/finding — the mandatory glue of ADR-0134) keep one canonical home the kit chooses; skill-specific scaffolds live in each skill's references/ (already true for the write-* skills). The manifest can point at either, so the kit is free to place each where self-containment wants it.
4. The manifest freezes only where, not what. The artifact formats stay frozen in their own ADRs (0058/0060/0061/0067/0068); the manifest declares location. The single-sourcing rule is refined: the kit declares its layout, the CLI discovers it — the CLI never defines the layout. The drift-guard keys on the manifest.

Consequences

• CLI change (contract-adjacent, ADR-gated): the two real templates/-coupling points — applyUpdate's kit-owned prefix set and checkWorkspace's required-path check — read the kit's suspec-kit.yaml manifest (a manifest-less kit falls back to the built-in default). The CLI stays scaffold-additive/reconcile-only (ADR-0085/0134) — it discovers and materializes, never dictates. (The Correction below narrows this from the five use-cases the Context named to these two — the other three are not templates/-path-coupled.)
• The kit is free to place templates per self-containment; the CLI adapts. Resolves the ADR-0134 inversion and the held #8 question.
• Implementation shipped (2026-07-05) under SPEC-cli-kit-manifest: the kit gained suspec-kit.yaml (corpus-starter-kit@f125523) and the CLI reads it at those two coupling points (corpus-cli@845697e), keeping a built-in default for manifest-less kits; the single-sourcing wording in canon + the kit AGENTS.md was updated to match.

Status

Accepted (2026-07-05) — and implemented the same day (SPEC-cli-kit-manifest): the CLI reads the kit's manifest at its two templates/-coupling points, replacing the hardcoded KIT_OWNED_PREFIXES constant the Correction below quotes; per ADR-0063 the mechanism is now toolable and shipped — the CLI applies it where a manifest is present, and a manifest-less kit keeps the built-in default. Resolves the CLI↔templates/ coupling under ADR-0134; refines the single-sourcing rule (kit declares layout, CLI discovers it). Honors ADR-0117.

Correction (2026-07-05, code-verified). The Context above overstated the coupling. Verified against the CLI source, the hardcoded-templates/ coupling is only two points: applyUpdate's KIT_OWNED_PREFIXES = ['templates/', '.agents/skills/', 'advanced/', 'hooks/'] (what suspec update refreshes) and checkWorkspace's blocking missing-template finding (a workspace must have a templates/ dir). initWorkspace copies the whole kit, so it is not path-coupled. scaffoldSpec/scaffoldChangePlan do not read templates/<artifact>.md — they render the skeleton inline (render_spec) mirroring the frozen format, so suspec new is coupled to the format (a separate duplication concern), not to the templates/ path. The manifest decision stands; its implementation targets those two points. This correction is itself the examine-don't-ruminate rule (ADR-0133) catching an unverified claim in this ADR's own Context.