Quality Gates

Purpose

Automatic quality validation at every stage of development — from individual file edits to full deployments. Quality gates catch errors early when they're cheapest to fix.

PostToolUse Hooks

The most powerful quality gate: automatic validation every time a file is edited or created.

How It Works

1. Agent uses Edit or Write to modify a file
2. PostToolUse hook fires automatically
3. Validation script detects the file type and runs the appropriate checker
4. Output is shown to the agent immediately
5. Agent sees errors and can fix them in the same session

Setting Up

The plugin includes a ready-to-use hook in hooks/hooks.json that runs scripts/post-edit-check.sh. When installed as a plugin, this works automatically.

For manual setup in a project, add to .claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PostToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Edit|Write",
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "command",
            "command": "bash .claude/scripts/post-edit-check.sh"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Important: The command must be exactly bash .claude/scripts/post-edit-check.sh — do not add arguments. The script reads $CLAUDE_TOOL_INPUT from the environment automatically.

See references/hook-patterns.md for stack-specific hook examples.

Deploy Checklist

Before deploying any application, run through these 5 verification stages:

See references/deploy-checklist.md for complete verification commands per stack.

CI Pre-Push Gate

Run the full quality suite locally before pushing to remote:

Lint → Build → Test → Security Scan

Key rules:

• Run stages sequentially
• Exit on first failure
• Target under 2 minutes total
• Don't skip stages
• Save results to .claude/reports/ci/

See references/ci-pipeline.md for the full pipeline template.

Stack Detection

The quality gates system auto-detects your project stack to run the right validators.

Detection Priority

File Extension Fallback

When editing individual files, detect by extension:

Workflow Integration

During Development

• PostToolUse hooks catch errors on every edit
• Agent fixes issues immediately before they compound

Before Pushing

• Run the CI pipeline locally: lint → build → test → security
• All stages must pass before pushing

Before Deploying

• Run through the deploy checklist
• Verify build, environment, and health endpoints
• Ensure rollback plan is ready

Cross-References

• references/hook-patterns.md — PostToolUse hook examples for every stack
• references/deploy-checklist.md — 5-stage pre-deploy verification
• references/ci-pipeline.md — Local CI pipeline pattern