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AWaC

ADR 005 — Some product stacks remain lazy until first use

Status

Section titled “Status”

Accepted — 2026-05-01

Context

Section titled “Context”

When migrating from a fixed-template setup to AWaC, every product team in the portfolio needs a decision: create its agent-stack immediately, or defer until there is real content?

The reality of two of the products at the moment of cutover was:

  • No specific content in the old template’s .agents/ for those products. No product-specific rules, skills or workflows.
  • No active project that needed a stack for those products at the time.

Decision

Section titled “Decision”

Some product stacks are kept as “lazy”: registered in the shortcuts: section of the registry but with no repo created.

# <transversal-org>/agent-stack-core/awac.yml/shortcuts
product-c: <product-c-org>/agent-stack    # lazy - repo not created yet
product-d: <product-d-org>/agent-stack    # lazy - repo not created yet

When the first project that needs one of these arrives, run wsp scaffold-stack <org> to create the repo automatically.

Options considered

Section titled “Options considered”

A. Create every stack upfront

Section titled “A. Create every stack upfront”

Create <product-c-org>/agent-stack and <product-d-org>/agent-stack now, empty.

Pros:

  • Complete topology from day 1.

Cons:

  • Debt: empty repos that nobody maintains. When the first project arrives, somebody has to populate them by hand.
  • Confusion: the team sees an agent-stack that contains nothing useful.
  • Misleading template catalogue: <product>-feature shows up but using it bootstraps an empty stack.

B. Fully lazy (no shortcut either)

Section titled “B. Fully lazy (no shortcut either)”

Don’t register product-c or product-d in the registry at all. When needed, add the shortcut + create the repo.

Pros:

  • Zero debt.

Cons:

  • Not discoverable: someone asking “which products are under AWaC?” doesn’t see them.
  • Activation friction: when needed, two steps (register + create) instead of one (create).

C. Lazy with shortcut registered (the choice)

Section titled “C. Lazy with shortcut registered (the choice)”

Register shortcuts in the registry with a # lazy comment, but DON’T create the repos until needed.

Pros:

  • Discoverable: they appear in wsp shortcuts with a lazy flag.
  • Zero debt: no empty repos.
  • Minimal activation friction: run wsp scaffold-stack <org>, the shortcut is already there, everything fills in by itself.
  • Clarity: anyone can see that these products exist but don’t have content yet.

Cons:

  • If someone tries to use the shortcut before scaffolding, the CLI fails with E_REPO_NOT_FOUND. Mitigable with a specific message for shortcuts marked lazy: “this stack is registered as lazy. Run wsp scaffold-stack <org> to create it.”

Consequences

Section titled “Consequences”

Positive

Section titled “Positive”
  • Explicit topology: the team knows which products are planned without having to maintain empty repos.
  • Low activation cost: one command.
  • The registry reflects organisational reality without over-extending.

Negative

Section titled “Negative”
  • Possible initial confusion if someone tries to use a lazy shortcut before scaffolding. Mitigable with good error messages.

Policy for future stacks

Section titled “Policy for future stacks”

New products start as lazy if:

  • There is no specific agent content yet (no rules/skills/workflows of their own).
  • There is no active project that requires the stack.

New products start active if:

  • There is content to migrate from the old template.
  • There is an imminent project.

Notes

Section titled “Notes”

This decision was taken jointly with ADR 003 (stack naming) during the design of the initial registry.

See also

Section titled “See also”