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Praetor Fast Adoption Guide

Transform any legacy or greenfield repository into a 100% compliant Praetor-governed codebase in a single command or AI chat turn.

🚀 1-Step CLI Adoption

Run standardsctl adopt (or praetorctl adopt):

# Adopt current repository (auto-detects language and frameworks)
standardsctl adopt

# Dry-run simulation: inspect proposed changes without writing files
standardsctl adopt --dry-run

# Force overwrite existing configurations & record technical debt
standardsctl adopt --force --record-baseline

What Adoption Scaffolds Automatically:

  1. .standards.yaml: Declarative repository manifest containing profile, facets, tool versions, and policy locks.
  2. .standards.lock: Cryptographic SemVer lockfile binding your repo to exact governance standard releases.
  3. .standards-baseline.json: Technical debt ratcheting baseline. Existing infractions (e.g. legacy loop bounds, unwrapped errors) are recorded so legacy code compiles while new code is strictly gated.
  4. AGENTS.md + 6 Vendor Targets: Canonical agent operating harness transpiled to CLAUDE.md, .cursor/rules/*.mdc, .windsurfrules, and .github/copilot-instructions.md.
  5. .devcontainer/devcontainer.json: Multi-architecture container configuration pinned to verified base images.
  6. Multi-IDE Configs: Workspace settings for VSCode, Cursor, JetBrains, and Neovim.
  7. Makefile & LeftHook: Automated pre-commit hooks and standard verification targets (make verify-all).

🤖 AI Agent Adoption via MCP (standards_adopt)

If you are using Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Antigravity IDE, or any MCP-compatible coding agent, you can onboard any repository by asking:

"Adopt this repository into Praetor governance."

Under the hood, the agent executes the standards_adopt tool:

{
  "name": "standards_adopt",
  "arguments": {
    "path": ".",
    "dry_run": false,
    "force": false,
    "record_baseline": true
  }
}

The tool returns a detailed summary of created and reconciled files, detected archetypes, and recorded legacy debt.

âš¡ GitHub Action Bot & PR Automation

Add Praetor fast adoption to your GitHub repository using our composite action:

name: Praetor Adoption Bot

on:
  issue_comment:
    types: [created]

jobs:
  adopt:
    if: github.event.issue.pull_request && contains(github.event.comment.body, '/adopt')
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: cordanaLLM/praetor/.github/actions/praetor-adopt@main
        with:
          mode: adopt
          force: true

Comment /adopt on any PR to have cordana-standards[bot] automatically scaffold Praetor governance and commit the baseline.