The Sovereignty Oath: Zero Residue

"Zenzic is a sentinel in your pipeline, not a chain. The ability to remove it is not a failure mode — it is a design requirement."

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The Oath

Zenzic makes one unconditional promise: it will never hold your codebase hostage.

To ensure the integrity of the Safe Harbor, Zenzic's audit core is strictly read-only. We believe that a linter should never be a source of unintended mutations. Any future remediation features will be implemented as explicit, interactive utilities (e.g. zenzic fix), keeping the analysis phase 100% mutation-free.

This document is the formal proof of that promise.

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1. Zero Residue Guarantee

When you remove Zenzic, what remains?

Component	Residue After Removal
Your source files	Unchanged — Zenzic never writes or modifies content
Your application code	Unchanged — Zenzic is never imported at runtime
Your Python types	Unchanged — Zenzic uses typing.Protocol, not inheritance
Your config format	Standard [tool.zenzic] PEP convention — remove the section, done
Your CI pipeline	One workflow step — delete it
Your pre-commit hooks	One hook entry — remove it

Total removal time: 30 seconds.

No migration scripts. No data format to convert. No architecture to unwind.

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2. Why typing.Protocol Matters

Zenzic's adapter system uses typing.Protocol — the Python standard library's structural subtyping mechanism.

This is a deliberate architectural choice:

# Zenzic adapter contract — structural subtyping only
class AdapterProtocol(Protocol):
    def get_docs_root(self) -> Path: ...
    def get_nav_paths(self) -> frozenset[str]: ...
    def get_metadata_files(self) -> frozenset[str]: ...

What this means for you:

• You do not need to subclass a Zenzic base class.

• Your code does not carry a Zenzic inheritance chain.

• If you remove Zenzic, your Python classes remain unchanged — no base class to strip

  out, no method overrides to remove, no MRO to audit.

The adapter is a structural contract. If your object has the right methods, Zenzic accepts it. If Zenzic is removed, your object still works — it simply has no auditor.

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3. PEP-Compliant Configuration

Zenzic configuration lives in the [tool.zenzic] section of pyproject.toml — the standard PEP 518 location for tool config:

pyproject.toml

[tool.zenzic]
docs_dir = "docs"
engine = "mkdocs"

Or in a standalone zenzic.toml at the repository root.

Removal procedure:

pyproject.toml (after)

# [tool.zenzic] section deleted — no other changes needed

Or:

rm zenzic.toml

The [tool.zenzic] section is an isolated namespace. Removing it does not affect any other tool configuration. No cascading effects. No shared state.

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4. The 30-Second Decommission

Step 1 — Remove from CI (15 seconds)

.github/workflows/docs.yml

# Delete this block

- uses: PythonWoods/zenzic-action@v1

  with:
    version: "0.7.0"
    format: sarif
    upload-sarif: "true"

Or, if running directly:

.github/workflows/docs.yml

# Delete this block

- name: Zenzic Sentinel

  run: uvx zenzic check all

Step 2 — Remove Configuration (15 seconds)

rm zenzic.toml
# OR edit pyproject.toml: remove the [tool.zenzic] section

Done. Your pipeline runs without the documentation integrity gate. Your codebase is identical to its state before Zenzic was adopted.

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5. Why We Document the Exit

Trust is built on the ability to leave, not the requirement to stay.

A tool that makes departure difficult is not confident in its value — it is protecting its own presence. The Zenzic trust model is Zero-Trust: including toward Zenzic itself.

The sentinel exists to protect your documentation. Not to protect itself.

Saga VI: The Governance of Quartz — read the chronicle