trace

A command that builds a table linking project documentation to its source code and tests. It also identifies documents without matching code or tests and files excluded from the project configuration.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to audit documentation coverage, locate untested or undocumented code, and review traceability in a project.
Why use it?
It shows which documented requirements are implemented and tested, so missing links and outdated or unused files are easier to find.

Command

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/raccioly/docguard/trace
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/raccioly/docguard
Per session 5 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 406 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00005 $0.00406
Opus 5 $0.00003 $0.00203
Sonnet 5 $0.00001 $0.00081
Haiku 4.5 $0.00001 $0.00041

Measured 2d ago against content hash c8fdee1b2cee, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

trace scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

extensions/spec-kit-docguard/commands/trace.md · 57 lines

What it actually says

DocGuard Trace

Generate a requirements traceability matrix mapping canonical docs ↔ source code ↔ tests. Config-aware — respects .docguard.json exclusions and detects orphaned files.

User Input

$ARGUMENTS

Steps

  1. Run DocGuard trace on the current project:
npx --yes docguard-cli@latest trace $ARGUMENTS
  1. Review the matrix. Each canonical doc gets a coverage signal:

    • TRACED — doc + source code + tests all linked
    • PARTIAL — doc exists, source found, no test coverage
    • UNLINKED — doc exists but no matching source code
    • MISSING — doc not found
  2. Orphaned files (exist but excluded from config) are flagged with cleanup instructions.

Standards

Maps against industry standards per document type:

Document Standard
ARCHITECTURE.md arc42 / C4 Model
DATA-MODEL.md C4 Component / ER (Chen)
TEST-SPEC.md ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3
SECURITY.md OWASP ASVS v4.0
ENVIRONMENT.md 12-Factor App
API-REFERENCE.md OpenAPI 3.1

Flags

  • --format json — Output as JSON
  • --dir <path> — Run on a different directory

Research

Inspired by ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 traceability requirements (Lopez et al., AITPG, IEEE TSE 2026).

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 57 lines · 5 tokens per session scan A c8fdee1b2cee

Subscribe to this mod's changes

trace is a command published in the GitHub repository raccioly/docguard (27 stars, last pushed 4d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 5 tokens to every session and 406 once invoked, about $0.0000 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.