alkstore/tasks/docs-frontmatter-cleanup.md

id, name, status, depends_on, scope, risk, impact, level, tags

id	name	status	depends_on	scope	risk	impact	level	tags
docs-frontmatter-cleanup	Docs frontmatter cleanup — the 11 invalid YAML frontmatters	pending		single	trivial	isolated	implementation	wave-8 docs hygiene

Description

Eleven docs carry invalid YAML frontmatter: the last_updated values are unquoted multi-line plain scalars containing : (colon+space) sequences — which YAML plain scalars cannot carry — so frontmatter parsers fail on them. The affected files (verified this session with a PyYAML parse sweep over docs/**/*.md):

• docs/architecture/README.md
• docs/architecture/core-contract.md
• docs/architecture/deployment.md
• docs/architecture/engine-mem.md
• docs/architecture/engine-postgres.md
• docs/architecture/engine-sqlite.md
• docs/architecture/overview.md
• docs/architecture/queues.md
• docs/plans/implementation.md
• docs/research/consumer-inventory.md
• docs/research/phase-0.md

The fix is quoting (the annotation prose is content — keep it verbatim; the family's alksocks docs use the same multi-line annotation style and parse fine, so the style is fine, only the quoting is missing). Choose the quoting that survives the values' own characters: several values contain apostrophes (trim_to's) and em-dashes; double quotes with " escaped (none observed) or single quotes with '' escaping both work — pick one convention and apply it uniformly. Do not reword or trim the annotations.

While in the sweep: confirm every other frontmatter-carrying doc under docs/ parses (the POC spec/findings docs already do) and confirm the tasks/*.md frontmatters still parse and taskgraph validate stays green (they are valid today — do not touch them beyond what the parse check demands).

Acceptance Criteria

• All 11 listed files' frontmatter parses as valid YAML (a scripted parse sweep over docs/**/*.md reports zero failures), with the last_updated annotation prose preserved verbatim
• One quoting convention applied uniformly across the fixed files
• taskgraph validate still green; no tasks/*.md content changed
• The parse sweep command recorded in Notes so future sessions can re-run it

References

• docs/plans/implementation.md §Wave 8 (this cleanup rides the pre-release pass)
• docs/architecture/engine-sqlite.md (an example of the invalid pattern, status: stable — the fix must not disturb the status fields the review gates set)

Notes

To be filled by implementation agent

Summary

To be filled on completion