budget

/plumbline:budget

Manage the Plumbline violation budget — the ratchet mechanism for incrementally cleaning up checks too noisy to enable outright (typically comment_hygiene on a mature codebase).

The budget file (.plumbline-budget.json) records the current violation count and per-check breakdown. CI invokes plumbline budget check; the lint exits 2 only if the count went UP, so PRs that hold or reduce the count pass.

Usage

Without args, the skill checks current usage against the saved baseline. Pass save to record a new (typically lower) baseline.

/plumbline:budget          # report current vs baseline (CI-suitable)
/plumbline:budget save     # record current count as the new baseline

Run

action="${1:-check}"
case "$action" in
  save)
    node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT%/}/bin/plumbline" budget save .
    ;;
  check)
    node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT%/}/bin/plumbline" budget check .
    ;;
  *)
    echo "usage: /plumbline:budget [save|check]" >&2
    exit 1
    ;;
esac

After the script runs

• Below baseline: propose committing the new lower baseline with /plumbline:budget save. The ratchet is one-way; once committed, future increases fail CI.
• At baseline: no action needed.
• Above baseline: the lint has already exited 2; the change introduced new violations. Investigate which (the script breaks down by check code), propose fixes, or surface the design decision (sometimes new violations come from new code paths that genuinely need new tags).