0.19.0 — state a rule, and find the question that never ran

What this release is about¶

0.18.0 gave a grammar for asking questions of the corpus. 0.19.0 lets a store state a rule in that grammar — checks: in docs-schema.yaml, evaluated by check as Tier 1 warnings — and, while answering the questions that feature left open, found that a mistyped question had been answering "nothing wrong" all along.

Released 2026-08-25. CHANGELOG.md and the GitHub release carry the full text; this carries the edges.

What an upgrader must do¶

owner == null now errors. Bare null is a JMESPath identifier, not a literal, so the old form compared a key no document carries against itself — the answer you wanted, for the wrong reason. Rewrite as owner == `null`. Every --expr example docir shipped in 0.18.0 used the wrong form, so anything copied from those docs needs the same edit.

Nothing else changes without asking: a store declaring no checks: behaves exactly as before.

The line this release walks¶

adr-b2cfed9d5888 refused a rule engine. adr-d2ae4604a01e adds one and does not contradict it, because what that decision refused was docir having opinions about your architecture — not your ability to state yours. docir ships no expressions. The single thing to watch in any future change here is a shipped default appearing, which is how it crosses back.

What it cost to be sure¶

The feature waited for a rule somebody actually wanted, and the wait is why it works: the first rule declared found two real violations in docir's own corpus and went silent when they were fixed.

Two checks were measured and not built this cycle — a code:-coverage advisory (adr-f0fb4833ab04) and, in the same week, a query rewriter and a generative dependency. The pattern is the point: the instrument shipped in 0.18.0 is what makes "no" an answer with a number behind it.