Terms of Acceptance — the cccc and KISS gates

This repository has no accepted complexity exceptions. Every measured Python function is subject to the configured cccc and KISS limits. Any later exception must be a documented rule about a defensible class of code, never a file allowlist, frozen count, or inline suppression.

The rule about rules

The project rule is NO RATCHETS — expose tech debt, exactly as stated in epistemic-graph's and agent-utilities' own docs/quality-gate-terms.md pages (read those for the full worked examples — the Rust exhaustive-dispatch cyclomatic exemption on EG, the KISS threshold recalibration method on both). The test is mechanical, and identical here:

• An exception is a RULE about a class of code, with a stated reason and the measurement behind it — recomputed from the source under measurement on every run.
• There is no list of accepted files, no list of accepted functions, no frozen count, no --update-baseline, and no in-line suppression comment.
• A finding that is accepted is still counted and printed.
• .kissconfig must never exist. Bare kiss check writes one, self-calibrated from what the repo currently passes, and silently disables four global rules. The shared KISS hooks fail if the file is present.

CCCC — the shared terms of acceptance

Caps are cyclomatic 10 and cognitive 15, enforced on the diff by the shared complexity-staged hook and over the whole package by complexity-census (both from Knuckles-Team/pipelines).

The shared hooks carry exactly one rule about a class of code, ported from epistemic-graph: a Rust exhaustive match (no catch-all arm, residual cyclomatic complexity within the cap) may exceed the cyclomatic cap, never the cognitive cap. It can only apply to .rs files, and this repository has none, so every function here is judged on the caps alone, with no discount.

If a genuinely irreducible complexity case ever arises here (some class of Python code where the cyclomatic/cognitive caps measure the wrong thing — the same shape of argument EG makes for Rust match dispatch), argue for a documented rule about that CLASS of code, with the measurement attached, add it to the shared hook and to this page. Never raise a threshold, never suppress inline.

KISS — this repository's own thresholds

.config/kiss.toml's [python] table records the enforced KISS limits (kiss 0.4.12, the fleet's own fork build). Recalibrate a threshold only from a reviewed measurement that explains why the metric misrepresents a class of code. Record the method beside the value; never tune a threshold merely to make the current tree pass.

Orphan-module rule — enforced

kiss-census enforces every KISS finding over the package. Orphan modules are no longer part of that pass: kiss 0.4.11 moved orphan detection to the coverage-linked kiss test, a much heavier and differently-scoped operation than this repository's wiring gate needs. The check-orphan-modules pre-commit hook (scripts/check_wiring.py orphans) enforces it instead, restoring the original structural semantics — see the arbora-repository-development skill's "Orphan-module wiring gate (Python)" section.

Reachability report — informational, manual stage only

A module with nonzero fan-in/fan-out passes the orphan check above even when no running process ever reaches it (it only imports, and is imported by, other equally unserved modules). scripts/check_wiring.py unreachable (the check-unreachable-modules pre-commit hook) reports every arbora module that walking every import edge — static and dynamic/name-based — from the declared roots (pyproject.toml's [project.scripts] / [project.entry-points] and the top-level package) never reaches. It runs at the manual stage only, so it never blocks pre-commit or pre-push and CI's blocking gate set is unchanged; it exists to make staged, not-yet-served code visible and trackable, not to force an immediate fix. See the arbora-repository-development skill's "Reachability report (Python) — staged, not-yet-served code" section.

Running the scanners

pre-commit run complexity-staged                        # cccc, on the staged diff
pre-commit run kiss-staged                              # KISS, on the staged diff
pre-commit run complexity-census --hook-stage manual --all-files
pre-commit run kiss-census --hook-stage manual --all-files    # whole package
pre-commit run check-orphan-modules --all-files                # Python wiring gate
pre-commit run check-unreachable-modules --hook-stage manual --all-files  # reachability report
pre-commit run dupehound-changed
pre-commit run jscpd-differential --hook-stage manual --all-files
pre-commit run jscpd-census --hook-stage manual --all-files

Never run bare kiss check — it writes the self-calibrating .kissconfig.