@vibe-agent-toolkit/cli 0.2.0-rc.8 → 0.2.0-rc.9

package/dist/commands/resources/check.js

@@ -1,168 +1,35 @@
 /**
- * `vat resources check` — run the project's own SQL assertions over its
- * resource projection.
- *
- * ## Why this verb exists when `vat resources query` already runs SQL
- *
- * A query answers a question once. A question worth asking twice is a rule, and
- * a rule that lives in someone's shell history is not enforced — it decays into
- * a comment. This verb runs the statements a project wrote into
- * `resources.checks`, turns each violating row into an ordinary validation
- * finding, and exits non-zero when any of them is an error. That is the whole
- * difference, and it is the difference between a tool and a gate.
- *
- * ## 🔑 A broken check is an ERROR, never a skip
- *
- * VAT ships no schema version, so a renamed column simply breaks a check's SQL.
- * The tempting handling — log it and carry on — is the one thing this must never
- * do: a check that stopped running looks exactly like a check that passed, and
- * the project keeps reporting green over an assertion nobody is making any more.
- * So a statement that will not run is reported as a finding at **error**
- * severity, with the columns the projection actually has, and it fails the run.
- *
- * That report carries its OWN code (`RESOURCE_CHECK_BROKEN`), which no
- * `validation.severity` entry can reach. A check's severity override is about how
- * bad a VIOLATION is; while the two shared the code `CUSTOM:<name>`, the
- * documented way to stand down an inherited check also silenced the news that it
- * had stopped checking. See the `catch` in `runChecks`.
- *
- * ## 🔑 An empty CORPUS is a refusal too, not a pass
- *
- * The same class one level further out, and the one that shipped. `checksRun` is
- * the denominator of RULES; nothing counted the ROWS, so a repository whose
- * enumeration came back empty — a broad `.gitignore`, a shallow or sparse CI
- * checkout, a root that resolved somewhere else — ran every declared check over
- * nothing and reported `status: success` on exit 0 with empty stderr. Population
- * declines ignored members rather than flagging them, so the tables held no
- * trace of it either.
- *
- * So the population's size is published (`membersEnumerated`), and a run whose
- * checks executed over zero members is an ERROR under the same non-overridable
- * code as a broken statement — see {@link emptyCorpusFinding}. A gate that
- * asserts nothing over nothing has not passed.
- *
- * ## 🔑 An unknown `--check` name is a refusal, not an empty pass
- *
- * The same failure class one flag over: a filter that matched nothing ran nothing
- * and exited 0. `requireDeclaredCheck` refuses it before the crawl, naming the
- * declared set. A gate that cannot fail is worse than no gate.
- *
- * ## 🔑 NO checks at all is the same refusal, and the one that shipped longest
- *
- * A project with a valid config and no `checks:` block reported `status:
- * success`, `checksRun: 0`, exit 0 — so DELETING the `checks:` block silently
- * deleted the gate and nothing anywhere said so. A gate that checked nothing is
- * indistinguishable from a gate that was removed, and the entire argument for
- * having these gates is that you never let those two look alike. It is now a
- * `RESOURCE_CHECK_BROKEN` error like the other three — see
- * {@link noCheckRanFinding}, and `RUN_INTEGRITY_CODE` for why one code
- * covers all four. Declaring no checks is a legitimate CHOICE; running a gate
- * that can only pass is not, so the remedy is to take the command out of the
- * pipeline.
- *
- * ## 🔑 SQL is the surface a user OPTED IN to, so no BUILT-IN check may be SQL
- *
- * Every check this verb runs is adopter-declared: {@link checkCommand} reads
- * `config?.resources?.checks` and nothing else, and warns loudly when a project
- * declares none. There are no built-ins, and the one way to end that quietly is
- * to author the first one as SQL. A default-on rule written as a statement makes
- * the engine, the projection and the population mandatory for everyone who
- * inherits it, without anybody deciding that. So: **built-ins are TypeScript
- * predicates over the projection's row model.** SQL stays the two places a user
- * asked for it — this verb's declared checks, and `vat resources query`.
- *
- * ⚠️ The engine today is `node:sqlite`, built into Node, so the thing at stake is
- * not an install — it is the POPULATION. On an ~11,700-member adopter tree
- * building the projection is **>99.9%** of a check run (16.5 s cold, ~1.3 s from
- * the store) against **0.0008–0.004 s** for the statements themselves; see
- * `vat-knowledge-resources.md`, which carries that measurement. That is exactly
- * the cost "What this does NOT do" below refuses to put on every adopter's
- * pre-commit path, and a default-on SQL check would put it there without the
- * decision. The INSTALL cost is deferred rather than gone: the open question
- * about a columnar engine is a 108 MB platform binding on a published toolkit,
- * and this invariant is what keeps that question still answerable either way.
- *
- * ## 🔑 The DEFAULT check set belongs to the pipeline, not to the config file
- *
- * A directory with no `vibe-agent-toolkit.config.yaml` must run exactly the same
- * default-on checks as one with a config; config only ADDS to that set or
- * OVERRIDES a severity in it. This is load-bearing rather than a convenience:
- * *"'default-on error' is meaningless as a category if being default-on requires
- * a config file to say so."*
- *
- * It is therefore a constraint on WHERE the defaults live in code, not only on
- * what they are. They cannot be defaulted into the parsed config object, because
- * an absent config is `undefined` and every default would vanish with it — for
- * the project that never wrote one, which is the population the category exists
- * for. The rest of VAT already behaves this way and is the shape to match:
- * `vat audit` completes its entire scan first and reads config only to apply
- * severity overrides, warning and CONTINUING when the file cannot be read; and
- * `loadResourcesWithConfig` hands `vat resources validate` a registry whose
- * built-in validators run whether `loadConfig` returned a config or nothing.
- * This verb has no defaults yet, so the invariant is a rule for the first one —
- * and the day it is written is the easiest day to break it.
- *
- * ## Keeping a TypeScript check and its SQL twin: two good reasons, one trap
- *
- * The proposal was "write the predicate twice, in TypeScript and in SQL, and run
- * whichever is faster". Two thirds of it are worth having.
- *
- * ✅ **As documentation.** An SQL twin is executable documentation of the row
- * model, and strictly better than prose about it: prose can describe a column
- * that no longer exists and never say so, while a statement stops compiling —
- * which this verb reports as `RESOURCE_CHECK_BROKEN` rather than as a skip.
- *
- * ✅ **As a differential oracle.** Run both over the frozen corpus and assert
- * IDENTICAL findings. That is the only thing which makes a dual implementation
- * better than a single one rather than worse: two implementations with no
- * mandatory differential test are simply two places for one rule to be wrong.
- * Apply it selectively, to genuinely relational checks — done by default, every
- * new rule costs three artifacts instead of one.
- *
- * ⛔ **As a runtime optimizer — rejected, on two INDEPENDENT grounds.** It would
- * essentially never choose SQL: `buildResourceProjection` hands the rows back in
- * memory before the ephemeral database exists at all, so the TypeScript arm is a
- * for-loop over data already in hand, and the SQL arm's whole measured share of a
- * run is the 0.0008–0.004 s above. A scheduler would be choosing between two
- * arms of the 0.1%. And it reintroduces the dependency through the back door: an
- * optimizer that MAY choose SQL means SQL MAY be needed at check time, which for
- * anyone shipping the thing is the same as needed. **Optionality is not a
- * property you can keep while also letting a scheduler reach for the optional
- * thing.**
- *
- * ## 🔑 Adopter SQL runs UNSANDBOXED on purpose — and contributed SQL is not adopter SQL
- *
- * What a statement may BE is gated hard, and documented where it is enforced:
- * `assertIsQuery` and `detachForeignSchemas` in
- * `packages/projection-sqlite/src/store.ts` refuse `ATTACH` and `PRAGMA`, with
- * the measured cross-repository leak that motivated both, and CHANGELOG.md's
- * `--budget` entry carries why nothing inside this process can interrupt a
- * runaway statement. Read those; do not restate them here.
- *
- * What is written down nowhere else is that everything PAST those gates is
- * unsandboxed deliberately. A `.sql` file the adopter points their own config at
- * is adopter code, at the same trust boundary as their eslint config: they wrote
- * it or they chose to inherit it, and VAT is not the thing standing between a
- * project and its own repository.
- *
- * 🚨 That reasoning covers exactly ONE trust domain, and the rule scoping it is
- * the other half: **contributed SQL is a reviewed EXAMPLE, never an
- * auto-executed check.** A contribution channel is third-party text, and a
- * statement arriving through one has none of the "they chose it" the paragraph
- * above rests on. Ship it as documentation an adopter copies into their own
- * `resources.checks` deliberately. One paragraph must not be stretched to cover
- * both domains.
- *
- * ## What this does NOT do
- *
- * It does not fold into `vat resources validate`. That command is on every
- * adopter's pre-commit path, and adding a store-backed population to it is a
- * cost and a risk that deserves its own decision with its own evidence. Wiring
- * this into CI is one line in a workflow; making it unavoidable is not this
- * change's call to make.
+ * `vat resources check` — run the project's own assertions over its resource
+ * projection, as a gate.
+ *
+ * The invariants this file implements are written down once, in
+ * `docs/architecture/cli.md` under "`vat resources check [path]`". Read that
+ * before changing anything here; the headlines, so a reader knows when to:
+ *
+ * - 🔑 **Four ways to check nothing are all refusals**, at error severity under
+ *   the non-overridable `RESOURCE_CHECK_BROKEN`: a statement that will not run
+ *   (the `catch` in `runUnits`), a corpus that enumerated empty
+ *   ({@link emptyCorpusFinding}), a `--check` name nothing declares
+ *   (`requireKnownCheck`), and not one check executed at all
+ *   ({@link noCheckRanFinding}, derived in {@link buildCheckOutputData} so an
+ *   emptied `BUILTIN_CHECKS` cannot publish a clean document).
+ * - ⚠️ That last one does NOT make the step always able to fail: the only
+ *   built-in ships at `info`. Do not invent a second refusal for it — that
+ *   would refuse the no-config run the default set exists to serve.
+ * - 🔑 **No built-in check may be SQL.** {@link checkCommand} reads
+ *   `config?.resources?.checks` and nothing else for statements; built-ins are
+ *   TypeScript predicates over the row model, and a built-in's `sqlTwin` is
+ *   documentation an adopter copies, never executed here.
+ * - 🔑 **The default set belongs to the pipeline, not the config file.**
+ *   `BUILTIN_CHECKS` reaches {@link runProjectChecks} as a REQUIRED `builtins`
+ *   argument via {@link runOutcome}; nothing on that path reads `config`.
+ * - 🚨 **Adopter SQL runs unsandboxed on purpose, and contributed SQL is not
+ *   adopter SQL** — a contributed statement ships as a reviewed example.
+ * - ⛔ A TypeScript/SQL twin is documentation and a differential oracle, never
+ *   a runtime optimizer to schedule between.
  */
 import { performance } from 'node:perf_hooks';
-import { issuesFromCheckRows } from '@vibe-agent-toolkit/resources';
+import { bindBuiltinChecks, BUILTIN_CHECK_NAMES, issuesFromCheckRows, LIMIT_DIRECTIONS, } from '@vibe-agent-toolkit/resources';
 import { buildReport, CUSTOM_CHECK_CODE_PREFIX, ExitCode, isCustomCheckCode, reportSchema, toFindings, } from '@vibe-agent-toolkit/schema';
 import { safePath } from '@vibe-agent-toolkit/utils';
 import { z } from 'zod';
@@ -174,6 +41,7 @@ import { createLogger } from '../../utils/logger.js';
 import { writeStdoutSync, writeStructuredOutput } from '../../utils/output.js';
 import { assertDirectoryArgument, projectRootOrLoudCwd, projectRootOrNull } from '../../utils/project-root-policy.js';
 import { withQueriedProjection, } from '../../utils/projection-query.js';
+import { relationBoundsFor } from '../../utils/relation-limits.js';
 import { nothingCheckedFinding, runIntegrityFinding } from '../../utils/run-integrity.js';
 import { createProgressWriter, parseProgressLog, unitInFlight, } from './check-progress.js';
 import { parseBudgetSeconds, requireSupervisableFlags, runsInThisProcess, superviseCheck, withProgressLog, } from './check-supervisor.js';
@@ -185,6 +53,38 @@ const PublishedCheckCostSchema = z.object({
     /** Rows the statement returned. ABSENT, never 0, when the statement did not complete. */
     rows: z.number().int().nonnegative().optional(),
     broken: z.literal(true).optional(),
+    /** Present and `true` only for a rule VAT supplied — see {@link CheckCost.builtin}. */
+    builtin: z.literal(true).optional(),
+}).strict();
+/**
+ * The published copy of {@link relationBoundsFor}'s answer.
+ *
+ * The registry lists are `readonly` and this document is handed to a serializer,
+ * so the arrays are copied rather than referenced — the same rule
+ * `lensesEvaluated` follows one field above: a published document owns no
+ * reference into the run's own state.
+ *
+ * @param lensesEvaluated - The lenses this run evaluated
+ * @returns The bounds keys to spread, or nothing
+ */
+function structuredBounds(lensesEvaluated) {
+    const bounds = relationBoundsFor(lensesEvaluated);
+    if (bounds.boundsStatement === undefined || bounds.limits === undefined)
+        return {};
+    return { boundsStatement: bounds.boundsStatement, limits: bounds.limits.map((limit) => ({ ...limit })) };
+}
+/**
+ * A signed bound on what the derived rows settle, as `@vibe-agent-toolkit/resources`
+ * states it.
+ *
+ * ⛔ The direction vocabulary is IMPORTED, never respelled: `LIMIT_DIRECTIONS`
+ * is the one list, tied to `StatedLimit['direction']` by `satisfies`, so a
+ * fifth direction cannot leave this schema quietly rejecting it.
+ */
+const StatedLimitSchema = z.object({
+    id: z.string(),
+    direction: z.enum(LIMIT_DIRECTIONS),
+    statement: z.string(),
 }).strict();
 /**
  * What the check run reports beyond its findings.
@@ -200,8 +100,28 @@ export const CheckDataSchema = z.object({
     population: z.enum(['derived', 'store']),
     /** What the population cost — charged to no check, see `CheckCost`. */
     populationSecs: z.number().nonnegative(),
-    /** What evaluating the lens cost, paid before the first statement ran. */
+    /** What evaluating the lenses cost, paid before the first statement ran. */
     lensSecs: z.number().nonnegative(),
+    /**
+     * Which lenses that covers — the derived relations this run's checks could
+     * actually read. 🔑 An empty list says "no check asked for a derived relation"
+     * rather than "a lens stopped running"; without it `lensSecs: 0` is the same
+     * document either way, and a gate whose rules silently read empty relations is
+     * a gate that cannot fail.
+     */
+    lensesEvaluated: z.array(z.string()),
+    /**
+     * The prose frame {@link CheckDataSchema.limits} is read under. Present
+     * exactly when a lens with stated bounds was evaluated.
+     */
+    boundsStatement: z.string().optional(),
+    /**
+     * What the derived rows this run could read do NOT settle — signed and
+     * directional, the same list `vat claude context` publishes beside its own
+     * answer. Absent when no bounded lens ran: an empty list would claim nothing
+     * bounds the answer, which is stronger than "the answer holds no such row".
+     */
+    limits: z.array(StatedLimitSchema).optional(),
     /** The number of rules that EXECUTED. Derived from `checks`, never carried beside it. */
     checksRun: z.number().int().nonnegative(),
     /** What each rule cost, directly under the denominator it is the breakdown of. */
@@ -242,22 +162,28 @@ export const CHECK_REPORT_SCHEMA = reportSchema(CheckDataSchema);
  * stand-down matters here for an interrupted run, which recovers zero costs when
  * the kill landed before the first statement finished and already carries
  * {@link interruptedRunFinding}, the more specific of the two claims. A `--check`
- * filter that matched nothing is refused earlier by {@link requireDeclaredCheck},
+ * filter that matched nothing is refused earlier by {@link requireKnownCheck},
  * and must stay refused even if that guard is ever widened.
  *
+ * 🔑 **An absent `checks:` block does not empty the denominator** — the built-in
+ * set is in the pipeline, so reaching zero here means not even a default ran and
+ * the remedy is not "declare some checks". The guard stays because it is the
+ * mechanism-level guarantee that `checksRun: 0` can never be published clean,
+ * whatever empties it.
+ *
  * @param costs - One record per check that EXECUTED; its length is `checksRun`
  * @param issues - What the run already found, so an existing run-integrity
  *   report is not duplicated
  * @returns The finding, or nothing when at least one check ran
  */
 function noCheckRanFinding(costs, issues) {
-    return nothingCheckedFinding(costs.length, issues, () => 'No check ran, so this document is not a verdict: a gate that checked nothing'
+    return nothingCheckedFinding(costs.length, issues, () => 'No check ran at all, so this document is not a verdict: a gate that checked nothing'
         + ' produces the same report as a gate that was removed, and this run cannot tell'
         + ' you which happened.'
-        + ' Declare checks under `resources.checks` in vibe-agent-toolkit.config.yaml —'
-        + ' each is a description plus one SQL statement selecting the rows that VIOLATE it —'
-        + ' and if this project deliberately has none, take `vat resources check` out of the'
-        + ' pipeline rather than leaving a step that can only pass.');
+        + ' This is not an absent `resources.checks` block — VAT\'s own built-in checks run'
+        + ' whether or not a project declares any, so reaching zero means not even those'
+        + ' executed. Re-run with --debug and report it; if the run was filtered, check that'
+        + ' --check named a rule this build still ships.');
 }
 /**
  * Build the check report.
@@ -317,6 +243,16 @@ export function buildCheckOutputData(input) {
             // lens's cost to whichever rule the reader happened to be looking at, which
             // is the same defect `populationSecs` exists to prevent.
             lensSecs: formatDurationSecs(input.lensMs),
+            // What that number covers — see `CheckDataSchema.lensesEvaluated`. Copied
+            // into a plain array so the published document owns no reference into the
+            // run's own state.
+            lensesEvaluated: [...input.lensesEvaluated],
+            // The bounds of the rows those lenses produced, stated ONCE and only when
+            // a bounded lens ran. This is the verb an adopter makes GATE, so it is the
+            // one that most owes them — `utils/relation-limits.ts` carries why.
+            // Copied out of the readonly registry lists: the published document owns
+            // no reference into module state a later render could mutate.
+            ...structuredBounds(input.lensesEvaluated),
             // The denominator of rules. Derived from `checks`, never carried beside it.
             checksRun: input.costs.length,
             // What each rule cost, directly under the denominator it is a breakdown
@@ -336,6 +272,9 @@ export function buildCheckOutputData(input) {
                 durationSecs: formatDurationSecs(cost.durationMs),
                 ...(cost.rows === undefined ? {} : { rows: cost.rows }),
                 ...(cost.broken === undefined ? {} : { broken: cost.broken }),
+                // Absent, never `false`, on a declared rule — so the key's presence is
+                // the whole claim and a reader never has to tell `false` from unset.
+                ...(cost.builtin === undefined ? {} : { builtin: cost.builtin }),
             })),
         },
     });
@@ -399,7 +338,7 @@ function timed(now, run) {
  *
  * 🪤 Only `ask` reaches this. Turning the selected rows INTO findings is not a
  * statement failure, and reporting it as one told the operator a working rule
- * was broken — see the append in {@link runChecks}.
+ * was broken — see the append in {@link runUnits}.
  *
  * @param name - The check's key in `resources.checks`
  * @param error - Whatever the statement threw
@@ -410,48 +349,85 @@ function brokenCheckFinding(name, error) {
         + (error instanceof Error ? error.message : String(error)));
 }
 /**
- * Run every declared check, collect its findings, and price it.
- *
- * ## What the clock measures, and what it must not
- *
- * The span is `ask(check.sql)` and nothing else — structurally, because it is
- * the thunk handed to {@link timed}, which exists for that reason and documents
- * the mutation that proved an inline stopwatch unguardable. Everything before
- * the loop — the git tracker, `buildResourceProjection`, loading the ephemeral
- * database — is paid ONCE for all of them and reaches the document as
- * `populationSecs`; see {@link CheckCost} for why charging it here would be a
- * lie in N places.
- *
- * ⚠️ `performance.now()`, never `Date.now()`. A rule over a small projection is
- * routinely sub-millisecond, and a millisecond-granularity clock reports every
- * one of them as `0` — which reads as "not measured" and makes the whole
- * attribution worthless exactly where it is cheapest to get right.
- *
- * 🪤 Exactly one cost record per executed check, on both paths, because
- * `checksRun` is this list's length. The record is filed before the rows become
- * findings, so nothing between the two can leave a check unpriced.
- *
- * ## 🚨 Why the loop announces itself before it can be stopped
- *
- * {@link ProgressSink} is told a check is about to run, and told again when it
- * is priced. That ordering is not decoration: this verb runs adopter-authored
- * SQL unattended, an accidental cross join or an unterminated `WITH RECURSIVE`
- * runs forever, and NOTHING in-process can interrupt it — the query is
- * synchronous, it holds the event loop, and `node:sqlite` exposes no interrupt.
- * The supervisor's only lever is an external `SIGKILL`, which publishes nothing
- * of the killed process's memory. So the name of the rule that hangs has to be
- * on disk BEFORE it is entered, or it is not recoverable at all.
+ * One declared statement, as a unit.
  *
+ * @param name - The check's key in `resources.checks`
+ * @param check - Its declaration
+ * @param ask - Runs one statement against the populated projection
+ * @returns The runnable unit
+ */
+function sqlCheckUnit(name, check, ask) {
+    return {
+        name,
+        select: () => {
+            const rows = ask(check.sql);
+            return { rows: rows.length, report: () => issuesFromCheckRows(name, check, rows) };
+        },
+    };
+}
+/**
+ * One built-in predicate, as a unit.
+ *
+ * 🪤 Its `rows` is the finding count, and that is the same quantity a statement
+ * reports: one finding per violating row. There is no conversion step to leave
+ * outside the clock, so the whole predicate is timed.
+ *
+ * @param builtin - The built-in, already bound to this run's projection
+ * @returns The runnable unit
+ */
+function builtinCheckUnit(builtin) {
+    return {
+        name: builtin.name,
+        builtin: true,
+        select: () => {
+            const issues = builtin.run();
+            return { rows: issues.length, report: () => issues };
+        },
+    };
+}
+/**
+ * Every check this run will attempt, in the order it will attempt them.
+ *
+ * 🔑 **Built-ins FIRST, and never interleaved with the declared ones**, so the
+ * document's `checks[]` opens with the same rules in the same order for every
+ * project and a reader comparing two runs compares like with like.
+ *
+ * 🪤 A project MAY declare a check whose key equals a built-in's name. Both run,
+ * both are priced, `builtin` on the cost record tells them apart, and
+ * `--check <name>` selects both. Not refused: a new config error is a breaking
+ * change and nothing about the collision is unsafe.
+ *
+ * @param builtins - The default set, bound to this run's projection
  * @param checks - The project's `resources.checks`
- * @param only - A single check key to run, or undefined for all of them
  * @param ask - Runs one statement against the populated projection
+ * @returns The units, built-ins first
+ */
+function checkUnits(builtins, checks, ask) {
+    return [
+        ...builtins.map((builtin) => builtinCheckUnit(builtin)),
+        ...Object.entries(checks).map(([name, check]) => sqlCheckUnit(name, check, ask)),
+    ];
+}
+/**
+ * Run every unit, collect its findings, and price it.
+ *
+ * 🚨 **The timed span is `unit.select()` and nothing else** — structurally,
+ * because it is the thunk handed to {@link timed}. 🚨 **And the loop announces a
+ * check BEFORE it can be stopped**, because a runaway statement can only be
+ * ended by an external `SIGKILL` that publishes nothing of the killed process's
+ * memory. Both, with the clock-granularity and one-record-per-check rules they
+ * rest on: `docs/architecture/cli.md`, "The population is charged to NOBODY" and
+ * "Why the loop announces a check before it can be stopped".
+ *
+ * @param units - Every check this run will attempt, built-ins first
+ * @param only - A single check name to run, or undefined for all of them
  * @param now - The clock, in milliseconds; injected so a test can assert an
  *   exact duration rather than a range that passes on a timer that never started
  * @param onProgress - Told what is about to run and what it cost, or undefined
  *   when nothing is watching (the in-process lane, and `--budget 0`)
  * @returns The findings, and one cost record per check that ran
  */
-function runChecks(checks, only, ask, now, onProgress) {
+function runUnits(units, only, now, onProgress) {
     const issues = [];
     const costs = [];
     /** File the cost with the observer as well as with the caller — one place. */
@@ -459,23 +435,28 @@ function runChecks(checks, only, ask, now, onProgress) {
         costs.push(cost);
         onProgress?.({ kind: 'check', ...cost });
     };
-    for (const [name, check] of Object.entries(checks)) {
+    for (const unit of units) {
+        const { name } = unit;
         if (only !== undefined && name !== only)
             continue;
+        // Spread onto every cost record this unit files, so the two arms below
+        // cannot disagree about which set the rule came from.
+        const origin = unit.builtin === undefined ? {} : { builtin: unit.builtin };
         // 🪤 BEFORE `timed`, and not one line later. `ask` is where a runaway
         // statement never returns from, so an announcement below it is filed by
         // every check except the one whose name the operator needs.
         onProgress?.({ kind: 'start', name });
-        const outcome = timed(now, () => ask(check.sql));
+        const outcome = timed(now, unit.select);
         if (!outcome.ok) {
-            // Priced up to the throw, and with NO row count: a statement that did not
+            // Priced up to the throw, and with NO row count: a check that did not
             // complete selected nothing, and `rows: 0` would say it selected nothing
-            // and passed.
-            price({ name, durationMs: outcome.durationMs, broken: true });
+            // and passed. A built-in reaches this arm too — a defect in VAT's own
+            // predicate must fail the gate rather than vanish.
+            price({ name, durationMs: outcome.durationMs, broken: true, ...origin });
             issues.push(brokenCheckFinding(name, outcome.error));
             continue;
         }
-        price({ name, durationMs: outcome.durationMs, rows: outcome.value.length });
+        price({ name, durationMs: outcome.durationMs, rows: outcome.value.rows, ...origin });
         // 🪤 Appended one at a time, NEVER `issues.push(...findings)`. A spread
         // becomes an ARGUMENT LIST, which throws `RangeError: Maximum call stack
         // size exceeded` past roughly 125,000 elements on the main thread — and a
@@ -485,44 +466,49 @@ function runChecks(checks, only, ask, now, onProgress) {
         // the throw landed in the arm above: a rule that ran perfectly was reported
         // as one that "could not run, so it is asserting nothing". A loop does not
         // put the argument limit in play at all.
-        for (const issue of issuesFromCheckRows(name, check, outcome.value))
+        for (const issue of outcome.value.report())
             issues.push(issue);
     }
     return { issues, costs };
 }
 /**
- * Refuse a `--check` name the project does not declare.
+ * Refuse a `--check` name that names neither a built-in nor a declared check.
  *
- * 🔑 **An unknown name used to be a silent green.** The filter was a bare
- * `if (only !== undefined && name !== only) continue;` and nothing compared the
- * flag against the declared keys, so `--check nope` filtered every check away,
- * ran none, and exited 0 with `checksRun: 0` and `issues: []` on empty stderr.
- * The loud "no checks are declared" warning never fired, because it asks whether
- * the `checks` MAP is empty, never whether the FILTER matched anything.
- *
- * That is not a hypothetical typo: `vat resources check --check orphan-skills`
- * is the example in this command's own help text. Rename or delete that check
- * and the CI step keeps passing forever while asserting nothing.
+ * 🔑 **An unknown name is otherwise a silent green.** With nothing comparing the
+ * flag against the known names, `--check nope` filters every check away, runs
+ * none, and exits 0 with `checksRun: 0` and `issues: []` on empty stderr — and
+ * the "no checks are declared" warning does not fire, because it asks whether
+ * the `checks` MAP is empty, never whether the FILTER matched anything. Not a
+ * hypothetical typo: rename or delete a check and the CI step keeps passing
+ * forever while asserting nothing.
  *
  * Thrown rather than reported as a finding, because it is an OPERATOR error and
  * not a content violation — the two have different exit codes in this command's
  * contract (2 versus 1) and different audiences. Thrown before the projection is
  * populated, so a mistyped flag costs no crawl.
  *
+ * 🔑 **A built-in is nameable here exactly like a declared one.** A guard that
+ * only knew the config would refuse the very rules that run when there is no
+ * config at all. The refusal names both sets.
+ *
+ * @param builtinNames - The default set's names — {@link BUILTIN_CHECK_NAMES} in
+ *   production, and passed in rather than imported here so a test can prove the
+ *   guard rather than restate the constant
  * @param checks - The project's `resources.checks`
  * @param only - The `--check` value, or undefined
- * @throws When `only` names no declared check
+ * @throws When `only` names no check this run would attempt
  */
-export function requireDeclaredCheck(checks, only) {
+export function requireKnownCheck(builtinNames, checks, only) {
     // 🪤 `Object.hasOwn`, not `only in checks`. `in` walks the prototype chain, so
     // `--check toString` would have looked declared, matched nothing, and restored
     // the exact silent green this guard closes.
-    if (only === undefined || Object.hasOwn(checks, only))
+    if (only === undefined || builtinNames.includes(only) || Object.hasOwn(checks, only))
         return;
     const declared = Object.keys(checks);
-    throw new Error(`No check named "${only}" is declared. `
+    throw new Error(`No check named "${only}" exists. `
+        + `Built in: ${builtinNames.join(', ')}. `
         + (declared.length === 0
-            ? 'This project declares none — add them under `resources.checks` in'
+            ? 'This project declares none of its own — add them under `resources.checks` in'
                 + ' vibe-agent-toolkit.config.yaml.'
             : `Declared under \`resources.checks\`: ${declared.join(', ')}.`));
 }
@@ -530,7 +516,7 @@ export function requireDeclaredCheck(checks, only) {
  * Name every `CUSTOM:` severity override that overrides nothing.
  *
  * 🔑 **The same silent-green shape as an unknown `--check` name, one surface
- * over.** {@link requireDeclaredCheck} refuses `--check nope` because a filter
+ * over.** {@link requireKnownCheck} refuses `--check nope` because a filter
  * that matched nothing ran nothing and exited 0. A `validation.severity` entry
  * keyed `CUSTOM:<name>` for a check that is not declared is the mirror image: it
  * parses (the schema validates the KEY's shape and cannot see
@@ -563,7 +549,7 @@ export function requireDeclaredCheck(checks, only) {
 export function warnUndeclaredOverrides(checks, validation, logger) {
     const stale = Object.keys(validation?.severity ?? {})
         .filter((code) => isCustomCheckCode(code))
-        // 🪤 `Object.hasOwn`, not `in` — same reason {@link requireDeclaredCheck}
+        // 🪤 `Object.hasOwn`, not `in` — same reason {@link requireKnownCheck}
         // uses it: `in` walks the prototype chain, so an override keyed
         // `CUSTOM:toString` would look declared and stay silent.
         .filter((code) => !Object.hasOwn(checks, code.slice(CUSTOM_CHECK_CODE_PREFIX.length)));
@@ -1007,6 +993,7 @@ export function buildInterruptedCheckInput(options) {
         population: population.population,
         populationMs: population.populationMs,
         lensMs: population.lensMs,
+        lensesEvaluated: population.lensesEvaluated,
         membersEnumerated: population.membersEnumerated,
         issues: [interruptedRunFinding(unitInFlight(entries), ending)],
         // 🪤 Rebuilt field by field rather than passed through. The log's check
@@ -1019,12 +1006,19 @@ export function buildInterruptedCheckInput(options) {
             durationMs: entry.durationMs,
             ...(entry.rows === undefined ? {} : { rows: entry.rows }),
             ...(entry.broken === undefined ? {} : { broken: entry.broken }),
+            ...(entry.builtin === undefined ? {} : { builtin: entry.builtin }),
         })),
     };
 }
 /**
- * Run the declared checks and resolve their severities — the whole of this
- * verb's logic, with the database taken out.
+ * Run this project's checks — VAT's default set plus whatever the project
+ * declared — and resolve their severities: the whole of this verb's logic, with
+ * the database taken out.
+ *
+ * 🔑 **`builtins` is a required argument beside `checks`, never a default inside
+ * this function.** That is what makes "the default set belongs to the pipeline,
+ * not to the config file" a property of the signature — nobody can get the
+ * defaults by omitting an argument or lose them by supplying no config.
  *
  * Exported and pure so the loop is provable without a spawn. It was not: every
  * spawned case declared ONE check (the `--check` case declares two and filters
@@ -1037,8 +1031,11 @@ export function buildInterruptedCheckInput(options) {
  * trust.
  *
  * @param options - The run
+ * @param options.builtins - The default set, already bound to this run's
+ *   projection. Required, and `[]` is a deliberate statement rather than an
+ *   omission
  * @param options.checks - The declared checks
- * @param options.only - A single check key, or undefined for all
+ * @param options.only - A single check name, or undefined for all
  * @param options.ask - Runs one statement against the populated projection
  * @param options.validation - The project's severity overrides, or undefined
  * @param options.membersEnumerated - How many members the population enumerated.
@@ -1053,9 +1050,9 @@ export function buildInterruptedCheckInput(options) {
  *   unit case run with nobody watching
  * @returns The resolved findings, and one cost record per check that ran
  */
-export function runDeclaredChecks(options) {
+export function runProjectChecks(options) {
     const now = options.now ?? (() => performance.now());
-    const { issues, costs } = runChecks(options.checks, options.only, options.ask, now, options.onProgress);
+    const { issues, costs } = runUnits(checkUnits(options.builtins, options.checks, options.ask), options.only, now, options.onProgress);
     // 🚨 HERE, and this line moved to get here. `checks-complete` buys the phase
     // after the last statement a fresh watchdog window, and three places
     // documented that phase as "resolving severities and serialising". It was
@@ -1066,7 +1063,7 @@ export function runDeclaredChecks(options) {
     // which is the useful direction: the alternative was to weaken three docs.
     //
     // ⚠️ It does NOT cover the last check's row-to-issue conversion, which
-    // `runChecks` does after filing that check's cost — see {@link inFlightPhrase}
+    // `runUnits` does after filing that check's cost — see {@link inFlightPhrase}
     // for why the `idle` sentence still has to hedge for that window.
     options.onProgress?.({ kind: 'checks-complete' });
     // The run-integrity report leads. An aggregate check selects a row whatever
@@ -1083,6 +1080,12 @@ export function runDeclaredChecks(options) {
         // It reaches a check's VIOLATIONS only. `RESOURCE_CHECK_BROKEN` is not an
         // overridable code, so the news that a check stopped checking survives every
         // override an adopter can write about the check itself.
+        //
+        // 🔑 A BUILT-IN's findings pass through the identical call, under their
+        // ordinary registry code: `severity: { CLAUDE_RULE_GLOB_INERT: ignore }`
+        // silences the default exactly as it silences any other code VAT emits, with
+        // no `CUSTOM:` spelling and no second override surface. That the two lanes
+        // share this one line is the reason there is nothing to keep in step.
         issues: resolveIssueSeverity(reported, options.validation),
         costs,
     };
@@ -1252,18 +1255,20 @@ export async function checkCommand(pathArg, options) {
         const config = loadConfigCached(projectRoot);
         const checks = config?.resources?.checks;
         if (checks === undefined || Object.keys(checks).length === 0) {
-            // 🪤 Stderr only, and it decides NOTHING. The refusal lives in
-            // {@link noCheckRanFinding}, on the document, because the document is
-            // what the exit code is computed from and what CI parses; this warning is
-            // the same statement addressed to the human, and the two are one statement
-            // per audience. It used to be the ONLY channel, and the document said the
-            // opposite — `status: success`, exit 0 — which is the half that matters.
-            logger.warn('No checks are declared. Add them under `resources.checks` in'
-                + ' vibe-agent-toolkit.config.yaml; each is a description plus one SQL'
-                + ' statement selecting the rows that VIOLATE it.');
+            // 🪤 Stderr only, and it decides NOTHING — the document is what the exit
+            // code is computed from and what CI parses. ⚠️ It does not stand beside a
+            // refusal: the built-in set runs here, so this run DID assert something.
+            // What the operator needs to know is that the project is relying entirely
+            // on VAT's defaults, which is what a deleted `checks:` block looks like.
+            logger.warn(`No checks of this project's own are declared, so this run asserted only VAT's`
+                + ` built-in set (${BUILTIN_CHECK_NAMES.join(', ')}).`
+                + ' Add your own under `resources.checks` in vibe-agent-toolkit.config.yaml;'
+                + ' each is a description plus one SQL statement selecting the rows that VIOLATE it.'
+                + ' `vat resources check --help` prints the SQL each built-in is equivalent to,'
+                + ' as a starting point.');
         }
         // Before the crawl: a mistyped flag is an operator error and pays nothing.
-        requireDeclaredCheck(checks ?? {}, options.check);
+        requireKnownCheck(BUILTIN_CHECK_NAMES, checks ?? {}, options.check);
         // Also before the crawl, and for the same reason: an override that overrides
         // nothing is knowable from the config alone, and the operator should read it
         // beside the other config news rather than after a full population.
@@ -1315,7 +1320,13 @@ async function runOutcome(options) {
     // bare throw, and the finding exists precisely so a renamed column cannot end a
     // gate quietly. The population is the price of an honest report, and it is
     // charged once for every check rather than per broken one.
-    return withQueriedProjection({ root, logger }, (ask, provenance, extent) => {
+    // 🔑 `statements` IS passed, and it is a different question from `preflight`:
+    // it only decides which derived relations are evaluated. Every declared
+    // statement goes in, including one `--check` narrows away — the lens is per
+    // RUN, and narrowing it would make `--check foo` and a full run disagree about
+    // which relations exist.
+    const statements = Object.values(checks).map((check) => check.sql);
+    return withQueriedProjection({ root, logger, statements }, (ask, provenance, extent, projection) => {
         // 🔑 Emitted HERE, inside the callback, because this is the one place where
         // the provenance and the extent are both exactly in hand — and emitted the
         // INSTANT population completes, because its arrival is what tells a
@@ -1327,14 +1338,27 @@ async function runOutcome(options) {
             population: provenance.population,
             populationMs: provenance.populationMs,
             lensMs: provenance.lensMs,
+            lensesEvaluated: [...provenance.lensesEvaluated],
             membersEnumerated: extent.membersEnumerated,
         });
         // 🪤 `checks-complete` is NOT emitted here. It used to be, and that put
-        // `resolveIssueSeverity` — which runs inside `runDeclaredChecks` — on the
+        // `resolveIssueSeverity` — which runs inside `runProjectChecks` — on the
         // wrong side of the line, still charged to the last check's budget window
         // while three separate docs said otherwise. It is emitted by
-        // `runDeclaredChecks` itself now, the instant the last statement is done.
-        const ran = runDeclaredChecks({ checks, only, ask, validation, ...extent, onProgress });
+        // `runProjectChecks` itself now, the instant the last statement is done.
+        //
+        // 🔑 The DEFAULT SET enters HERE, from a module constant bound to the
+        // projection — never from `config`, which this line does not read. That is
+        // the placement the "defaults belong to the pipeline" invariant is about.
+        const ran = runProjectChecks({
+            builtins: bindBuiltinChecks(projection),
+            checks,
+            only,
+            ask,
+            validation,
+            ...extent,
+            onProgress,
+        });
         return { ...ran, ...provenance, ...extent };
     });
 }