About product-cli
product-cli is a Rust CLI and MCP server for modeling software as a verifiable What/How graph. It targets teams specifying and developing products, storing graph data as YAML or Turtle files in the repository and providing validation and governance tooling.
Key features
- 01Manage the What/How product graph
- 02Validate nodes and graph completeness
- 03Derive and simulate Deciders
- 04Export graphs as RDF/Turtle
- 05View live event-modeling diagrams
Use cases
- 01Capture domain and event models
- 02Check a product graph against rules
- 03Simulate aggregate behavior scenarios
- 04Inspect system and event-flow relationships
MCP support
The MCP server exposes tools for the product graph, Deciders, Projectors, and related operations, and can run over HTTP. A separate ddd MCP surface provides governance and language-intelligence tools.
Configuration
Local server config is the same for every client. Copy it into your client’s MCP config file.
We haven’t collected a package or remote endpoint for this server. Follow the instructions in the project README.
Tools
Local servers expose tools only once running on your machine, and the maintainer has not provided a tool list.
Details
From the project READMEProduct
A CLI and MCP server for the Product Framework — specify software as a verifiable What/How graph.
The Product Framework is an open standard for describing a software product as one connected, machine-readable graph: the What (domain model + event model — entities, commands, events, read models, UI steps typed against Abstract Interaction Objects, systems, triggers, Deciders, Projectors), the How (contracts, the screen-composition / reification model, delivery features), and the typed links between them. The graph can drive generation, gate verification, and explain itself — so "describe this system" is a query, not a stale document.
This repo is the reference tooling: a single Rust binary (product) plus an MCP
server that lets an agent author and verify the graph directly. No database, no
service — the graph lives as YAML/Turtle under .product/.
$ product init --demo # scaffold + seed the bookstore What model
$ product domain new system sys-shop --system-kind application \
--purpose "consumer e-commerce" --target-classes gui
$ product domain validate --strict # per-node shapes + graph-level completeness
$ product decider derive Order # derive an aggregate's executable signature
$ product decider validate Order-decider
$ product mcp --http # MCP server + a live Event-Modeling web view at /
Install
# from source
cargo install --path product-cli
The binary ships with the What→How→Build Claude Code skills baked in.
product init writes them into .claude/skills/ of the new repo (pass
--no-skills to opt out); product skills install (re)installs them, and
product skills install --global puts them in ~/.claude/skills/ for every
project. Start a fresh Claude Code session to pick them up, then /product-session.
Choosing the agent CLI
product session start (and product author domain) host the What→How→Build
session in an agent CLI — Claude Code or GitHub Copilot CLI. The CLI is
resolved in this order:
- the
--cli claude|copilotflag, else - the repo's
[author].cliin.product/config.toml, else - the global user default in
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/product/config.toml(or~/.config/product/config.toml), else claude.
# .product/config.toml — make this repo default to Copilot CLI
[author]
cli = "copilot"
Scaffold it on a new repo with product init --cli copilot, or set a personal
default for every repo by putting the same [author] block in
~/.config/product/config.toml. With a default configured, product session start needs no --cli flag.
60-second tour
product init --demo # a worked What model to explore
product domain list # the captured nodes, by kind
product domain show Order # one node and its links
product domain export # the graph as RDF/Turtle
product domain validate # §3.1/§3.2 per-node conformance shapes
product domain validate --strict # + §3.2.0/§3.2.5/§3.4/§4.5 completeness checks
product decider derive Order # §3.3 — derive decide/evolve signature
product decider simulate Order-decider # run its flow-derived scenarios
product guide # where you are + the next step
The model
- What —
product domain …captures the domain + event model;product decider …(§3.3) andproduct projector …(§3.4) make behaviour and read models executable;product primitive …(§3.5) names irreducible algorithms. - How —
product how,product feature,product build,product seam,product previewcover the How contract, delivery features, the screen seam, and the §11/§12 design-system / content-store preview profiles. - Everything is validated against the framework's SHACL shapes + SPARQL rules;
the captured What serializes to Turtle (
product domain export).
MCP + the web view
product mcp --http starts the MCP server (framework tools: product_domain_*,
product_decider_*, product_projector_*, …) and serves a live web view at /
that renders the active What graph across three connected views — Systems
(the product → systems & journeys map, §3.0), Domain (one bounded context as
an ER graph, §3.1), and Flows (a system's event-model as Event-Modeling
swimlanes — triggers / commands / views over per-aggregate event streams, §3.2).
A node detail panel, the What→How→Build phase stepper, dark/light theme and live
SSE refresh round it out.
ddd — Decision-Driven Design governance
The workspace also ships ddd (crates ddd-core, ddd-lsp, ddd-mcp,
ddd-cli), a separate tool over a separate store: a repo-local .ddd/ graph
of predicates, closure claims, decisions, analyzer/linter manifests, pattern
instances, seam declarations, and interception event rows
(spec, umbrella PRD, formats: migrations).
cargo run -p ddd-cli -- init # scaffold .ddd/
ddd validate # schema + ontology rules (CI gate)
ddd diff --sarif build.sarif # declared vs. detected rules (CI gate)
ddd report escapes # diff + cadence + basis-loss report, each section stating its coverage
ddd why CA2007 # rule -> decision -> principal -> claims (or: detected but unfiled)
ddd render # static self-contained HTML projection of the graph
ddd serve # the ddd_* MCP surface (stdio)
ddd warmup # pre-load the LSP hosts (Roslyn solution load)
ddd what # What-graph boundaries carrying no declaration
Governing the What (the framework graph)
ddd what treats the .product/ What graph as a third governed surface
alongside C# and Bicep. It needs no language server: product-core already
owns the What as typed data, so the adapter reads kinds and containers
straight off DomainGraph and runs them through the same policy-table
mechanism (ddd-core/src/surface.rs, shared with the LSP adapters).
Two kinds of row. Boundary kinds are surface whatever they connect to: a system (§3.2.5), a context mapping (§3.1), a journey crossing (§3.0.1), a quality demand (§3.6). Published kinds are surface only when a §3.2.0 Translation carries them — the View a Translation watches, the Command it issues, and the Events that View projects. Everything else is internal to its own system and never demands a declaration.
That published/internal split is the What's analogue of C# visibility, and it
is load-bearing: the first table called every event and command a boundary,
which the measurement in DDD-what-02 killed (0 of 39 crossed anything). See
dec/ddd/what-published-qualifier.
A boundary counts as governed when a seam declaration's contract_location
is what:<element-id>. --strict turns it into a CI gate; the default
reports without failing, so the table can be calibrated against a real graph
first.
MCP surface (M3/M4)
ddd serve exposes the ddd_* tool namespace over stdio: LSP-backed
language intelligence for C# (roslyn-language-server --stdio --autoLoadProjects, the official prerelease .NET global tool) and Bicep
(bicep-ls from Azure.Bicep.LangServer) — find_symbol, references,
hover, diagnostics (joined to the manifests by rule id, the same join the
SARIF path uses), signature, rename (computes; application funnels
through the interceptor) — plus the governance tools why, graph_query,
declare_seam, declare_pattern, accept_risk.
The three declare/accept tools take amend: true to revise an entry
already filed. The flag is explicit in both directions — a create never
silently overwrites, an amend never silently creates — and the split is by
field: judgement amends (verdict_knowledge, obligation answers, rationale),
while identity and LSP-derived evidence (contract_location, metadata) are
carried forward untouched, so the interception rows stay machine-authored.
ddd_apply_edit runs every edit through the per-language contract-surface
classifier (policy tables, PRD §9): non-surface edits apply; a surface edit
applies only with a matching same-session declaration; otherwise it is
rejected with a structured demand whose facts (symbol, kind, signature,
visibility, reference count) are pre-filled and whose judgment fields are
blank (dec/ddd/rejection-facts-prefilled). Modes: intercept: enforce | warn | off, per artifact class via intercept_by_class (config format 3);
adapter.csharp.internal_is_surface flips the library-repo posture
(dec/ddd/internal-not-surface). Every classified surface outcome lands as a
row under .ddd/seams/events/ — the correspondence dataset. Hosts are
spawned lazily, health-checked, and respawned on crash; while Roslyn loads
the solution, tools return an explicit {"status": "loading"} rather than
hanging. CI runs against a fixture-grade mock host
(dec/ddd/fixtures-not-sdk); set DDD_LSP_E2E=1 with both tools on PATH to
run the gated real-host suites.
ddd diff compares the manifests under .ddd/manifest/ against two detected
sources per language and reports UNGOVERNED (detected, no manifest entry),
STALE (manifest entry, absent from config and emissions), and
UNCITED_SUPPRESSION (a config or in-source suppression with no
risk-acceptance record):
-
configured — parsed from
.editorconfig(dotnet_diagnostic.<ID>.severitylines only; section globs are recorded, never evaluated — deliberately not an editorconfig engine),bicepconfig.json(analyzers.core.ruleslevels), and the rootCargo.toml([workspace.lints.clippy], for this repo's own gates). Rules enabled by analyzer-package defaults have no config line and surface via the emitted source only —diffsays so when one source covers a rule. -
emitted — SARIF 2.1 files from real builds, ingested by one shared module. Produce them with (verified against current tool docs at M2):
- C#:
dotnet build -p:ErrorLog=diag.sarif%2Cversion=2.1— the MSBuildErrorLogproperty;version=2.1is required (the default is SARIF 1.0), and%2Cescapes the comma on the CLI (or set<ErrorLog>in the project). - Bicep:
bicep lint main.bicep --diagnostics-format sarif > bicep.sarif(also available asaz bicep lint).
In-source suppressions differ per toolchain: the C# compiler still logs a
#pragma-suppressed diagnostic into SARIF (marked suppressed), which is howUNCITED_SUPPRESSIONsees it; Bicep's#disable-next-lineremoves the diagnostic from the output entirely, so Bicep source suppressions are invisible to detection — onlylevel: offconfig suppressions are covered. - C#:
Point ddd diff at the files with --sarif or the detect.sarif list in
.ddd/config.yaml. This repo governs itself: .ddd/manifest/clippy.yaml maps
clippy::unwrap_used to its decision, and ddd diff verifies it against the
workspace lints table.
Build & test
cargo build
cargo t # full suite (alias: test --no-fail-fast)
cargo clippy -- -D warnings -D clippy::unwrap_used
See CLAUDE.md for the architecture and contributor workflow, and docs/product-framework-open.md for the spec.
License
See LICENSE.
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