Validate Metadata

You validate all AIWG extension definitions (agents, skills, commands, behaviors) against the metadata schema. You report errors with field names, line numbers, and remediation hints — and return a clean pass/fail summary.

Triggers

Alternate expressions and non-obvious activations (primary phrases are matched automatically from the skill description):

• "are my extensions valid?" → run full metadata validation
• "check my agent definitions" → validate agent metadata specifically
• "is this skill definition correct?" → validate single extension file
• "prep for release" → validate metadata as part of pre-release checks

Trigger Patterns Reference

Pattern	Example	Action
Validate request	"validate metadata"	Run aiwg validate-metadata
Check request	"check metadata"	Run aiwg validate-metadata
Validate extensions	"validate extensions"	Run aiwg validate-metadata
Quality check	"metadata quality"	Run aiwg validate-metadata
Single file	"validate this agent file"	Run aiwg validate-metadata <path>
Directory-scoped	"validate just security skills"	Run aiwg validate-metadata --recursive agentic/code/frameworks/security-engineering/skills
CI mode	"validate metadata for CI"	Run aiwg validate-metadata --ci --format json --strict

Behavior

When triggered:

1. Extract intent:

   • Is validation scoped to a specific extension type (agents, skills, commands, behaviors)?
   • Is a specific file path mentioned?
   • Is verbose output needed?

2. Run the appropriate command:

   # Default: validate all extensions
   aiwg validate-metadata
   
   # Recursive validation of a directory
   aiwg validate-metadata --recursive agentic/code/frameworks/security-engineering/skills
   
   # Strict CI output
   aiwg validate-metadata --ci --format json --strict
   
   # Validate a single file
   aiwg validate-metadata agentic/code/addons/aiwg-utils/skills/my-skill/SKILL.md
   

3. Report the result — list all errors with field, location, and fix hint; summarize pass/fail count.

What Gets Validated

Check	Description
Required fields	id, name, description, platforms present
ID format	Lowercase, hyphen-separated, no spaces
Version format	CalVer (YYYY.M.PATCH) for versioned extensions
Trigger phrases	At least one trigger phrase defined per skill
Tool declarations	Tools listed in allowedTools are valid AIWG tools
Platform list	All platforms are valid (claude-code, hermes, openclaw, etc.)
Handler path	handler field points to an existing file (for commands)
Duplicate IDs	No two extensions share the same ID

Error Format

Errors are reported in this format:

ERROR  skills/my-skill/SKILL.md:12  missing required field: `id`
       Fix: Add `id: my-skill` to the YAML frontmatter

WARN   agents/my-agent/AGENT.md:3   version format invalid: `1.0.0`
       Fix: Use CalVer format: `2026.4.0`

PASS   commands/my-command/COMMAND.md

Examples

Example 1: Full validation before release

User: "Run metadata validation before I tag the release"

Extraction: Full validation, no scope restriction

Action:

aiwg validate-metadata

Response: "Validated 47 extension definitions. 45 passed. 2 errors found:

• skills/soul-blend/SKILL.md line 4: platforms list is empty — add at least one platform
• agents/test-engineer/AGENT.md line 9: duplicate ID 'test-engineer' conflicts with agents/testing/test-engineer/AGENT.md"

Example 2: Scoped validation for skills only

User: "Check only the security-engineering skills metadata"

Extraction: Directory-scoped to security-engineering skills

Action:

aiwg validate-metadata --recursive agentic/code/frameworks/security-engineering/skills

Response: "Validated 38 skill definitions. All passed."

Example 3: Single file validation

User: "Is this agent definition valid?" (with path provided)

Extraction: Single file path

Action:

aiwg validate-metadata agentic/code/addons/aiwg-utils/skills/new-skill/SKILL.md

Response: "1 error: missing required field id in frontmatter (line 3). Add id: new-skill to fix."

Example 4: CI pipeline usage

Action:

aiwg validate-metadata --ci --format json --strict

Output:

{
  "total": 47,
  "passed": 45,
  "failed": 2,
  "errors": [
    { "file": "skills/soul-blend/SKILL.md", "line": 4, "field": "platforms", "message": "platforms list is empty" }
  ]
}

References

• @$AIWG_ROOT/src/cli/handlers/utilities.ts — Command handler
• @$AIWG_ROOT/docs/cli-reference.md — CLI reference
• @$AIWG_ROOT/src/extensions/types.ts — Extension type definitions and schema