`scripts/sprint-guard.mjs`

Proves the one-place invariant: an intent lives in the backlog pool or in exactly one sprint, never both and never two.

node scripts/sprint-guard.mjs --block

Scale profile. A repository that does not run sprints has nothing for it to check.

What it refuses to let happen

The same intent in two places. That is how "what are we doing right now" stops being answerable from the files: two answers, both plausible, neither marked stale.

The same intent in two places under two ids. Copy a row into a sprint, renumber the copy left in the pool, and every check keyed on the id agrees that nothing is wrong. So the title is checked too: one title in two files under two ids is one piece of work in two places. The one legitimate pair - a split:<id> row and the remainder row it names - is exempt.

A block that points at nothing, or at work that is finished. blocked:INV-3 is checked against the intents that exist, including split:<id> rows: a split row finished the part it still covers, so a block on it has stopped applying exactly as a block on a done row has. A stale block is the most common way a board lies, because it looks like information.

A split whose remainder was never cut. split:INV-2b says INV-2b holds what is left. If no such row exists, the remainder is work that vanished at the close - and reading the status as finished without checking it would make three words in a cell a way to retire any row.

A closed sprint still holding what it did not finish. Work that did not land returns to the pool; a sprint keeping it makes the pool an incomplete list of what is owed.

A pool pointing at a sprint that closed, or counting it wrong. The ## In flight table is what keeps the pool the single place to start reading. /sprint-open writes its row and /sprint-close removes it, so a row naming a closed sprint is one nobody removed, and an item count that disagrees with the sprint's real rows is the pool describing work it cannot see. Once the table holds any row, an open sprint nothing points at is caught too - otherwise deleting the row would be the cheapest way past all of it.

How it reads a row

Status is taken from the last cell of the row, so a team adding a column of its own cannot switch the guard off by accident. The title is taken from the column the header names title, falling back to the cell after the id, and compared with markup stripped and whitespace collapsed - a copied row picks up cosmetic edits, and they should not hide it.

Block and split references resolve to the row that declares the id without regard to case, and are reported using that row's own spelling. ADR-auth and INV-2b are documented id shapes, so a verbatim comparison fails a difference the author cannot see, and uppercasing the reference to compare it - which this guard did - failed ADR-auth outright.

The block checks run with or without sprints present - they were once inside the sprint-scanning branch, which meant a repository with no open sprint had its stale blocks checked by nothing.

Decisions behind it

ADR-028 - sprints are the team layer. A solo repository has a backlog and needs nothing else.
The invariant is mechanical rather than a convention. "Remember to remove it from the pool" is exactly the kind of instruction that holds for three weeks.

Reference

Status. Optional - arrives at the scale profile, not at core.
How it arrives. copy - ship verbatim; the repo gets a byte-for-byte copy (guards, templates that carry no repo-specific content)
Shipped form. read it in the standard's own tree

The rule that requires it

The repo backlog holds intents, each with a definition of done; an item

See it in the spec

What checks it

node scripts/sprint-guard.mjs --block - an intent is in the backlog pool or in exactly one sprint (skips itself where there are no sprints) Blocks the build when it fails.