ak policy validate

Check that the project policy loads without conflicts and report drift in compiled rules.

Use ak policy validate to confirm the policy document is coherent. It reports every pair of rules that disagree about an input both describe, and every compiled rule whose source instruction has changed. A document with any conflict enforces nothing, so run this command in CI to turn a typo into a failed build instead of a silent enforcement gap.

Usage

ak policy validate [flags]

The command accepts no positional arguments and changes nothing. It reads .agentkit/policy.yaml and the instruction files it names.

Command flags

Flag	Default	Description
`--dir <path>`	`.`	Project directory holding `.agentkit/policy.yaml`.
`--fail-on-stale`	`false`	Also exit `1` when a compiled rule's source instruction has changed or is missing.

Shared flags are described in CLI conventions.

Common examples

ak policy validate
ak policy validate --fail-on-stale --json

Conflicts and drift

Two rules conflict when they can describe the same input and answer it differently, for example a block and a warn on overlapping path patterns, or a check one rule requires for a diff that another rule lets it skip. The engine applies no precedence between them; it refuses the whole document.

Drift findings use these state values:

State	Meaning	Fails `--fail-on-stale`
`source_changed`	The source file no longer contains the instruction the rule was compiled from.	Yes
`source_missing`	The source file is gone, unreadable, or outside the project.	Yes
`target_absent`	Nothing exists yet at the fixed part of a protected path pattern. Informational.	No

Reflowing, renumbering, or moving the instruction within its file is not drift; only changing its words is. A stale rule keeps enforcing until you re-adopt or remove it.

Automation output

kind is policy.validate. The data payload contains document, rules (rule count), loadable, conflicts (each with rules, kinds, and detail), and stale (each with rule, state, and detail).

Exit behavior

Exit	Meaning	What to do
`0`	The document loads. Drift may still be reported.	Review any drift findings.
`1`	The document is missing or unreadable, or `--fail-on-stale` found drift.	Fix the file, or re-adopt or remove the drifted rule.
`2`	Arguments were invalid.	Correct the invocation.
`4`	Rules conflict, so nothing in the document is enforced.	Edit the conflicting rules so they agree.