PROP-028 — Package families: <family> / -lang / -mcp

2.1 Three roles, one family stem

03req r2

04A package family is a set of packages sharing a <family> stem and delivering one coherent capability across three roles:

• 05<family> — the aggregator. kind = "stack", content-minimal: a vibe.toml and a README.md, and nothing else — no code, no boot snippet, no specmap.toml / conform.toml. Its whole job is to name the family's members at one resolved version set through exact =X.Y.Z pins in [requires]. Requiring the aggregator installs the family.
• <family>-lang — the language stack (kind = "stack", PROP-024): the guide, the cards, the boot snippet, and the runnable toolchain. It requires the flow foundation it projects.
• <family>-mcp — the MCP server (kind = "mcp", PROP-027): that same toolchain served over MCP. It exact-pins its -lang stack (PROP-027 §2.3) and version-mirrors it, so one engine set answers both the CLI floor and the agent's tools.
• <family>-docs — the documentation companion (kind = "doc", PROP-057 §3): the official-by-default documentation of the family's subject, in the subject's group. Unlike the three code roles it is a companion, not a member: it is never pinned by the aggregator, it does not take part in the family's unison (§2.2), it keeps its own version line, and it states compatibility with its subject through the version constraint of its [[documents]] table. Its translations follow the same companion form, one package per language, named <family>-docs-<lang> with a lower-case BCP-47 tag (rust-ai-native-docs-ru). Amended 2026-09-11.

06The aggregator's exact pins are deliberate, not kind-mandated: a stack may pin its dependencies however it likes, but a family is a tested version set, so the aggregator holds its members equal.

2.2 The version line follows the name, and the family moves in unison

07req r2

• 08A family member's version line is continuous with its NAME.
• Per PROP-008 §2.2 a renamed package is a new identity, so versions do not transfer across a rename: when a name is minted it continues past the highest version that name previously carried, and no <name>@X.Y.Z coordinate is ever reused for a different artifact.
• In particular an aggregator name that reuses a stem the old stack used (e.g. rust-ai-native, once the 0.5.0 stack, now the aggregator) begins its aggregator line ABOVE that history, never at or below it.

• 09Within a family the members move in unison: a content change to any member bumps EVERY member of that family to one shared version, and the aggregator's version IS that family version.
• A family is a tested set, so its members never carry mixed numbers — reading rust-ai-native 0.7.0 tells you rust-ai-native-lang, rust-ai-native-mcp, and the aggregator are all 0.7.0.
• The -mcp member's version-mirroring of -lang (PROP-027 §2.3) is the pairwise case of this whole-family law.
• The families currently stand at: rust 0.7.0, typescript 0.6.0, go 0.1.0 (the aggregator plus its -lang and -mcp members), and the shared foundation core-ai-native 0.8.0 — a foundation is not in any one family's unison, it bumps on its own content and every family widens its ^ floor to meet it.
• The -docs companion (§2.1) stands outside unison: a documentation edit never bumps the family's code, and a family release never forces a documentation release; the two are tied only by the [[documents]] constraint the companion declares, and the site picks the newest documentation whose constraint admits the family version (PROP-057 §4). Amended 2026-09-11.

2.3 The families in force

10req r1

• 11core-ai-native (flow) — the language-neutral discipline core. It stands ALONE: it is the shared foundation every language family requires, not itself an aggregator (there is nothing to aggregate beneath a foundation), so no core-ai-native-lang / -mcp exist. Each <family>-lang requires it.
• rust-ai-native — aggregator over rust-ai-native-lang (the stack) and rust-ai-native-mcp (the server).
• typescript-ai-native — aggregator over typescript-ai-native-lang and typescript-ai-native-mcp.

2.4 Naming below the package: crates, binaries, skills, servers

12req r1

13The family stem is language-FIRST and reaches every named surface a family ships, not only the package identities. Each crate, binary, agent skill, and MCP server carries the <family> prefix:

• 14The umbrella binary is the family name. A -lang stack's driver binary — the tool a consumer puts on PATH — is named <family> itself (rust-ai-native, typescript-ai-native): init / floor / conform / specmap / trace / … all hang off it. Its crate is <family>-cli.
• Every other binary and its crate share the <family>-<role> form. The standalone gates and the oracle: <family>-conform, <family>-specmap, <family>-tcg; their crates match name-for-name, so cargo … -p <family>-conform --bin <family>-conform and vibe bin exec <family>-conform read the same token. Library-only crates take the same law (<family>-conform-frontend, <family>-tcg-bridge, <family>-env-audit).
• <family>-mcp is the family's MCP surface. For a language family it is the server package, its single authored crate, AND its binary — all three the one name (maximal coherence: the package a consumer pins, the crate that builds, and the artifact that serves are indistinguishable). Its [[mcp_server]].name — the agent-visible key written into .mcp.json — is the FAMILY name (rust-ai-native), so the tool namespace an agent sees is the family, not an internal binary. For the flow foundation, core-ai-native-mcp is the neutral MCP transport crate the servers vendor.
• Skills carry the stem too: <family>-sweep, <family>-terraform.
• The neutral engine crates the core authors take the CORE stem — core-ai-native-conform, core-ai-native-specmap, core-ai-native-specmark, core-ai-native-specmark-grammar, core-ai-native-mcp — because they belong to no single language; each -lang / -mcp package vendors them byte-identically (PROP-024; cargo xtask sync-engines).

• 15Supersession of the -rust suffix policy (D13). The earlier owner policy — «every artifact with a cross-language analog ends in -rust / -typescript», recorded as the standing rule in GUIDE-AI-NATIVE-RUST §2 and referenced in PROP-026 and the WAL history — is SUPERSEDED by this language-FIRST family prefix.
• conform-rust becomes rust-ai-native-conform, not a suffixed conform-rust; the language LEADS the name so every artifact of one family sorts and reads together, and the aggregator name is the common prefix of its whole surface.
• The suffix scheme's goal (a cross-language pair differs consistently, never sometimes) is preserved and strengthened — the whole name, not just its tail, now carries the family.
• Language-NEUTRAL artifacts stay outside any family stem: vibevm's own generic vibe-* crates, the vibe-tcg product cell.