conformance

Documentation

Overview

Package conformance is Dockyard's MCP spec-compliance conformance suite (Phase 27, RFC §16). It rounds-trips every Apps + Tasks wire shape through internal/protocolcodec against fixtures derived from the vendored spec snapshots under docs/specifications/, asserting:

• the codec accepts every shape the spec mandates (decode succeeds);
• the codec re-emits a canonical wire shape that the spec accepts;
• the codec tolerates deprecated shapes on read and never emits them;
• codecs are versioned + keyed on the negotiated protocolVersion: an unknown version surfaces a typed error from CodecForStrict, and an advertised capability is served (the capability-negotiation invariant).

Each test cites the vendored spec snapshot it derives its fixtures from — the snapshot's pinned commit SHA + date are recorded in the file header in docs/specifications/. A spec bump that changes a wire shape is therefore visible as a diff in BOTH the snapshot and the conformance fixture, never silent.

The conformance suite differs from internal/protocolcodec's golden tests (which assert one expected wire string for one constructed input): the conformance suite drives the codec from the OUTSIDE — given a spec- canonical input, decode it, re-encode it, and assert the round-trip is byte-stable against a fixture. Where the spec allows optional fields, the suite exercises both presence and absence; where it allows deprecated shapes, the suite exercises the toleration + the emission policy.

Conformance fixtures live under fixtures/ as JSON files whose top-level comment field (the convention `_meta._cite`) names the vendored spec snapshot section the fixture is derived from. The fixture loader strips the _meta._cite marker before comparison so the comparison is against the wire shape only.