# tarmac — pre-flight gate for Claude Code

> Pre-flight checks happen on the tarmac.

**Status:** Proof of concept  
**Repository:** https://github.com/michaewahl/tarmac

## Problem

Agentic code gates get uninstalled the first time they block at 6pm on a Friday, bill unbounded tokens on every push, or quote a found secret into a ticket. The hard part is the contract — shadow-mode by default, budget-capped, redaction that can't be turned off, docs that update one page in place — not the scanning, which shells out to existing tools where they already do the job.

## What it does

A single local pre-flight suite for Claude Code — quality, dependencies, secrets, security review, and documentation gates behind one config file, producing one pass/fail report before a push. The deliberate design choice is to specify and freeze the config contract before building the runner: config files end up committed in other people's repos, so the JSON Schema (draft 2020-12) is validated and every gate prompt written against it first. Two pieces already execute — a tested bypass guard, a Claude Code PreToolUse hook that closes the `git push --no-verify` and agent-shells-out-to-git escape hatches with a loud, logged override, and a documentation gate proven end-to-end against live Confluence via the Rovo MCP (create → human edit → merge-update in place, human prose preserved). The remaining four gates are specified against the same shared contract but ship disabled until each earns trust on measured precision.

## Measured results

- **5 gates** one config, one report — Quality, dependencies, secrets, security, docs — behind a single validated contract.
- **1 proven** docs gate, end-to-end — Create → human edit → merge-update in place against live Confluence via Rovo MCP; no duplicate page.
- **shadow-first** reports, never blocks by default — Promotion to enforce is always a human decision; budget-capped, redaction mandatory.

## Stack

Claude Code hooks, JSON Schema (draft 2020-12), YAML, Rovo MCP (Jira + Confluence), Bash, git hooks

## Topics

AI, Agents, Security, Architecture

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Part of the proof-of-work portfolio of Michael Wahl — VP, Software Engineering & AI Enablement.

- Canonical project page: https://connect.michaelwahl.org/project/tarmac
- Full professional profile: https://connect.michaelwahl.org/
- Machine-readable context: https://connect.michaelwahl.org/llms.txt