governance.config.yml

governance.config.yml is the per-repo dial that tunes how Valinor governs a repo. It is scaffolded by init from your flags and read by the gates to resolve severities, the merge policy, and repo settings. It is validated by a Zod schema — an invalid value fails closed at parse.

Top-level fields

Name
profile
Type
enum (required)
Description
technical-app · marketing-site · bizdev-proposal · library. The governance profile.
Name
stack
Type
string (required)
Description
The repo's stack (e.g. node-ts, nextjs). Drives stack-conditional gates.
Name
deploy
Type
string (optional)
Description
The deploy target, when relevant.
Name
autonomy
Type
object
Description
The merge-automation dial. docs: hitl | auto-merge. code_merge: hitl | auto-staging | auto-main. Authoritative over the branch-protection review count.
Name
adoption
Type
object
Description
The strictness/scope dial (orthogonal to autonomy). maturity: greenfield | actively-developed | mature | deep-legacy. mode: strict | new-code | advisory. baseline: a baseline file path (required in new-code mode).
Name
gates
Type
record
Description
Per-concern gate config. Each entry is either a boolean (false disables the gate) or an object carrying severity (error | warn | off) plus gate-specific keys (e.g. dependency-health's failOn / denylist). Unknown keys are preserved; a mis-typed severity fails closed at parse.
Name
repo_settings
Type
object
Description
GitHub repo settings to verify/sync (e.g. delete_branch_on_merge, allow_auto_merge), each with a value, a verify flag, and a reason.

Example

The shape Valinor uses on itself (consumer #0 — full strictness from commit 1):

governance.config.yml

profile: library
stack: node-ts
autonomy:
  docs: hitl
  code_merge: auto-main
adoption:
  maturity: greenfield
  mode: strict
gates:
  claims-verify: true
  branch-protection-check: true
  # per-concern severity dials:
  docs-coverage:
    severity: error
  research-ledger:
    severity: off
repo_settings:
  delete_branch_on_merge:
    value: true
    verify: false
    reason: "admin-write-gated field; off-state is self-evident"
  allow_auto_merge:
    value: true
    verify: false
    reason: "auto-merge being disabled is immediately visible"

autonomy (merge automation) and adoption (strictness/scope) are orthogonal — one governs how a change merges, the other governs how strict the gates are. They move independently.

The gate severities here are read by the CI gate commands and the governance gate commands.