v7.13.0 — The Co-Author Edition

You and your AI co-author project.faf — AI fills the tech facts from your repo, you write the 6Ws — and faf-cli only touches what it wrote: links can't lead it outside your project, a failed write keeps the original, and your comments, values and notes stay as you left them.

• faf writes its block, you write the rest. faf touches only its managed block and its own section. A file with no faf markers is always prefixed, never taken over, even one that starts with faf's old stamp.
• project.faf edits keep your file as written. Comments, exact values (1.10 stays 1.10), anchors and keys faf doesn't know all survive. An edit changes only what it changes, and a no-op writes nothing.
• If it's a fact, faf fills the slot. A typed None or N/A is an empty slot, and the app-type decides which slots count.
  • faf auto fills a tech slot only from a repo fact. With no fact, the slot stays empty; only project.type falls back to library, and says so on its line.
  • With no fact, your words stay in a slot the app-type uses, and that slot scores 0 until filled.
  • In a slot the app-type leaves out, faf auto writes slotignored (shown as N/A).
  • The 6Ws stay yours: faf never replaces your words there, and faf go asks for the empty ones.
• faf ai enhance is retired. project.faf isn't enhanced: tech slots come from repo facts, and the 6Ws come from you.
• Links and encodings are checked first. faf refuses, in one line, to write:
  • through a link that leaves the project;
  • into .git, beyond its own hook section and diff driver;
  • over a whole file faf didn't render;
  • over a file that isn't UTF-8.
• A whole file faf renders is replaced only when it's still exactly what faf wrote. project.html and the Server and A2A cards now carry a render hash. If you edited one, faf leaves it and says so; --force replaces it.
• One-time step when upgrading: faf can't tell whether a project.html, Server Card or A2A card written before 7.13 was edited. The first run that would change one refuses it once, and that run exits 1. Check the file for hand edits, then run the same command once with --force; after that faf recognises its own output.
• A failed write keeps the original. faf writes to a temp file and renames it into place, so a full disk or a killed process leaves your file as it was. A file you edit while faf is writing is left alone.
• Memory stays yours.
  • soul.fafm keeps its curated index, its facts and its comments, and etching an id that already exists merges into that fact.
  • Tri-sync (FAF_PRO=1) writes Claude Code's own memory file as one section on top, and Claude's notes stay.
• Detection stays inside the project. Turbo-Cat no longer reads parent folders, so a monorepo root's stack no longer leaks into a package.
• For builders. New exports: resolveInside, safeWriteFile, updateFafFile, writeClaudeMemory, FafDNAManager, authorFafFromRepo, registryTitle, isNonProjectRoot and scoreText. writeFaf on an existing file now merges; pass { replace: true } for the old overwrite.
• Node 22+. The engine floor matches CI (22 and 24).

Upgrading: npm i -g faf-cli@7.13.0 · bunx faf-cli auto · brew upgrade faf-cli. Node 22+. The one-time --force step above applies to a project.html, Server Card or A2A card written before 7.13.

Tests: 1995 passing, 0 failing, across 145 files. Every writer was attacked by an adversarial owner-rule harness over seven rounds (symlinks, disk-full, CRLF, BOM, fences, aliases, typed words, mid-write edits), plus the faf-mcp and claude-faf-mcp suites.

Full notes: CHANGELOG.md

FAF defines. AGENTS.md instructs. AI codes.