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ADR-0006: Global dry-run support for content-modifying commands

Status: accepted | Date: 2026-01-17

References: RFC-0000:C-WORK-DEF

Context

All content-modifying commands (new, set, add, remove, edit, tick, bump, finalize, advance, accept, deprecate, supersede, move) write files immediately with no way to preview changes. Only render commands support –dry-run. Users and agents need a way to preview what changes will be made before committing to disk, especially for destructive or complex operations.

Decision

Add global -n/–dry-run flag at CLI level. Create WriteOp enum with Preview/Execute variants in write.rs. All write functions accept WriteOp. In Preview mode: serialize, display via ui::dry_run_preview, skip fs::write. Read-only commands ignore the flag.

Consequences

Positive: Unified dry-run UX, follows Unix -n convention, DRY write logic. Negative: Signature changes for write functions. Migration: Update all write callsites to use WriteOp.