Validate

The knowns validate command checks your project for broken references, missing fields, and quality issues before AI starts coding.

What It Checks

• Reference integrity — do task and doc references resolve?
• Task quality — has title? Valid status/priority? Unchecked AC on done tasks?
• Doc health — has title? Has description? Stale references?
• Template validity — do .hbs files exist? Do they parse correctly?

Usage

# Validate everything
knowns validate
 
# Validate specific scope
knowns validate --scope tasks
knowns validate --scope docs
knowns validate --scope templates
 
# Validate a single entity
knowns validate --entity abc123        # single task
knowns validate --entity specs/auth    # single doc
 
# Strict mode (warnings become errors)
knowns validate --strict
 
# Auto-fix supported issues
knowns validate --fix
 
# JSON output for CI/CD
knowns validate --json

Flags

SDD Validation

Use --scope sdd to check Spec-Driven Development coverage — verifies that tasks linked to specs have acceptance criteria and proper fulfills mappings.

knowns validate --scope sdd

Output Example

ERROR   [abc123] Parent task "xyz789" not found
WARN    [def456] Task is done but AC #1 is not checked: Add tests
INFO    [readme] Doc has no description

Summary: 1 error(s), 1 warning(s), 1 info

CI/CD Integration

# GitHub Actions
- name: Validate project
  run: knowns validate --strict

The exit code reflects validity — non-zero when errors are found.

MCP Tool

The same validation engine is available via MCP:

mcp__knowns__validate({
  "scope": "all",
  "entity": "abc123",
  "strict": false,
  "fix": false
})