Standard

Coding Standards Vault

The Coding Standards Vault is a structured, searchable library of coding rules, conventions, and patterns that an agent should follow for a given project or tech stack. Unlike free-form memories, standards are first-class records with language/stack metadata and a parent–child hierarchy, so an agent can pull the right rule for the right language at the right moment.

Why it matters: "Don't use var" only matters in JavaScript; "use Eloquent scopes" only matters in Laravel. Standards store that context and let the agent apply the correct rule instead of guessing.

What Is It?

Three MCP tools manage standards:

• standard-write — create, bulk-create, or update a standard.
• standard-read — search, fetch a single standard, or list/filter standards.
• standard-delete — delete one or many standards (with KG cleanup).

A standard is a typed rule record with: name, content, parent_id (hierarchy), context (where it applies), version, language, stack, is_global, tags, metadata (non-empty), and agent / model attribution.

How It Works

Write modes (auto-inferred)

standard-write picks the operation from the fields you send:

• standards: [...] → BULK create.
• id / code + any fields → UPDATE.
• name + content + tags + metadata → CREATE (single).

Conflict guard (stricter than memory)

When creating, the server checks semantic overlap against existing standards and rejects content above 0.82 cosine similarity (STANDARD_CONFLICT_THRESHOLD — stricter than memory's 0.85). Update the matching standard instead of duplicating it.

Scoping: language, stack, global

Standards are scoped three ways:

• Per-repo — tied to a repo (and owner).
• By language / stack — language (e.g. php) and stack (e.g. ["laravel", "filament"]) so the right rule surfaces for the current file.
• Global — is_global: true applies everywhere.

Read modes (auto-inferred)

• query present → SEARCH (hybrid vector + keyword; recency half-life is 180 days for standards — they age slower than memories).
• id / code / ids / codes → DETAIL (single or bulk).
• no discriminator → LIST, grouped by language and filterable by context, version, language, stack, tags, is_global, and repo.

Hierarchy

parent_id lets you model a standard as a child of another (e.g. a project rule under a global policy). Reads return the chain so the agent sees both the specific and the general rule.

MCP Usage

Create a language-scoped coding standard:

{
	"method": "tools/call",
	"params": {
		"name": "standard-write",
		"arguments": {
			"name": "Prefer Eloquent scopes over raw queries",
			"content": "Use query scopes / query builder on models instead of DB::select() for reusable, testable filters.",
			"context": "All Laravel model data access",
			"language": "php",
			"stack": ["laravel", "filament"],
			"tags": ["eloquent", "db"],
			"metadata": { "severity": "must", "source": "team-style-guide" },
			"owner": "vheins",
			"repo": "local-memory-mcp"
		}
	}
}

Search standards for the current stack:

{
	"method": "tools/call",
	"params": {
		"name": "standard-read",
		"arguments": { "query": "database access", "stack": ["laravel"], "owner": "vheins", "repo": "local-memory-mcp" }
	}
}

Dashboard Usage

Open the Standards tab. Standards are listed grouped by language with their tags, context, and scope. Click a standard for full content. This tab is read-only for editing — create and update standards through standard-write. See the Web Dashboard Guide.

Tips & Limitations

• metadata must be non-empty — a standard with no metadata is rejected; use it for severity, source, or enforcement notes.
• Conflict rejection at 0.82 is stricter than memory — keep standards distinct and update in place rather than re-adding near-duplicates.
• Language/stack drive recall — always set language and stack so the rule surfaces for the matching file; a missing language makes the standard repo-scoped only.
• is_global is powerful but blunt — a global standard applies to every repo; prefer repo/language scope unless the rule is truly universal.
• Standards age slowly — the recency half-life is 180 days, so older standards still rank; archive or update stale ones rather than relying on decay.

Related Pages

• Tools Reference & Usage Guide — standard-write, standard-read, standard-delete
• Web Dashboard Guide — the Standards tab
• Core Features — feature overview