Manifest Schema v1

A project-kit manifest is a YAML file under manifests/<id>.yml that describes how a project type is generated. Logic lives in Ruby; manifests describe structure only — there is no embedded Ruby and no inline patch logic in YAML.

Top-level keys

Key	Required	Type	Description
version	yes	Integer	Schema version. Must be 1.
id	yes	String	Unique manifest id (e.g. ruby-gem). Used as the CLI <type> argument.
language	yes	String	Primary language (e.g. ruby, typescript).
type	yes	String	Broad classification (library, application, script, cli).
templates	yes	Array	Base template sets, applied in order (e.g. [shared, ruby, ruby-gem]).
name	no	String	Human-readable name. Defaults to id.
subtype	no	String	Finer classification (e.g. gem, rails).
capabilities	no	Hash	See Capabilities.
variables	no	Hash<String, Hash>	Variables and defaults available in templates.
initializer	no	Hash	Upstream command to bootstrap the project. See Initializer.
capability_templates	no	Hash<String, Array>	Per-capability template overlays.
mise	no	Hash	Source data for the generated mise.toml.
patchers	no	Array	Symbolic patcher references (e.g. ruby/gemspec).

Capabilities

capabilities:
  supported:
    - cli
    - typed
    - coverage
    - github-actions
    - mise
  default:
    - mise
    - github-actions
    - coverage

• supported — capabilities this manifest is willing to apply. Anything not listed here is rejected by the CLI.
• default — capabilities enabled by default. Must be a subset of supported.

Built-in capabilities: cli, typed, docs, release, coverage, github-actions, mise. The CLI exposes a --<capability> / --no-<capability> flag for each.

Variables

variables:
  ruby_version:
    default: "3.4"
  author:
    default: "TODO Author"

Variables are available in templates as <%= var('ruby_version') %>, in path tokens as __ruby_version__, and in mise/initializer string fields as ``. The name variable is automatically seeded from the CLI argument.

Initializer

initializer:
  command: "bundle gem  --test=rspec --mit --linter=standard --git"
  append_if:
    cli:
      - "--exe"
    typed:
      - "--rbs"

The command is run in the parent directory of the destination, so generators that create their own subdirectory (most do) write into the expected path. append_if[<cap>] arguments are appended for each enabled capability.

Templates

templates:
  - shared
  - ruby
  - ruby-gem

Walked in order. Files are looked up under templates/<set>/. See template-overlay.md for details.

Capability templates

capability_templates:
  cli:
    - cli
  github-actions:
    - github-actions
  coverage:
    - coverage-ruby

Mapping of capability id -> array of template set names under templates/capabilities/. Applied after base templates, in capability-resolution order.

Mise

mise:
  tools:
    ruby: ""
  tasks:
    test:
      description: "Run the test suite"
      run: "bundle exec rspec"
    check:
      description: "Run lint and tests"
      depends:
        - lint
        - test

String values support `` interpolation. The MiseWriter renders this section into a project-local mise.toml.

Patchers

patchers:
  - ruby/gemspec
  - ruby/spec_helper

Each entry resolves to a Ruby class:

Manifest reference	Class
ruby/gemspec	ProjectKit::Patchers::Ruby::Gemspec
ruby/spec_helper	ProjectKit::Patchers::Ruby::SpecHelper
rails/rspec	ProjectKit::Patchers::Rails::Rspec
github_actions/non_blocking_lint	ProjectKit::Patchers::GithubActions::NonBlockingLint

Patchers run after templates and have read/write access to the generated tree.

Validation

Manifest.load(path) calls validate! which checks:

• All required keys are present.
• No unknown top-level keys.
• version matches Manifest::SCHEMA_VERSION (currently 1).
• templates, capabilities.supported, capabilities.default are arrays.
• capabilities.default is a subset of capabilities.supported.
• initializer.command is a string.