madr/status-enum

Validates that an ADR’s status field is one of the allowed values.

The rule reads context.metadata.status, which is YAML frontmatter merged with v2 body-list metadata. This means it supports MADR v2 (both the bold - **Status**: and the plain * Status: list shapes), v3 and v4. On conflict, frontmatter wins; explicit null/undefined frontmatter values are skipped so a v2 body-list value is preserved.

What it checks

missingStatus — no status field is found in the merged metadata (checked in both frontmatter and v2 bold-list), or the value is not a string. Message: Metadata does not contain a "status" field (checked frontmatter and v2 bold-list).
invalidStatus — status is present but is neither an exact match against values nor a prefix match against prefixValues. Message: Status "<status>" is not one of: <allowed>, with data.status and data.allowed (the allowed values plus each prefix rendered as "<prefix> ...").

Comparison is case-insensitive by default (caseSensitive: false). Prefix matching handles transitional states such as superseded by ADR-0042 matching the superseded by prefix.

Examples

Valid

---
status: accepted
date: 2026-05-01
---

# ADR-0001: ...

Case-insensitive by default, so status: ACCEPTED is valid. Prefix match:

---
status: superseded by ADR-0042
---

MADR v2 body-list form is also read:

# ADR-0001: ...

- **Status**: accepted
- **Date**: 2026-05-01

Invalid

# ADR-0001: ...

Emits missingStatus (no metadata at all).

---
status: pending
---

Emits invalidStatus (pending is not in the allowed enum).

🔧 Autofix

This rule is fixable (madr-lint --fix) — but only for v2 body-list status values, and only when the value maps onto the configured enum unambiguously. Frontmatter values are never rewritten (YAML-aware editing is out of scope).

Fixed — normalized to the canonical configured value:

Before	After	Kind
`- Status: Accepted`	`- Status: accepted`	case difference †
`- Status: depricated`	`- Status: deprecated`	curated misspelling
`- Status: superceded by ADR-0042`	`- Status: superseded by ADR-0042`	prefix typo (tail preserved)
`- Status: Superseded By ADR-0042`	`- Status: superseded by ADR-0042`	prefix case (tail preserved) †

† Case-only corrections apply under caseSensitive: true. With the default caseSensitive: false, a value that differs only by case is valid — it is never flagged, so there is nothing to fix. The misspelling rows (depricated, superceded by …) are invalid regardless of case setting and are fixed by default.

Not fixed (reported, never rewritten):

Ambiguous corrections — when a value case-folds onto two configured entries, or matches two configured prefixes, no fix is offered.
Unconfigured targets — a synonym only maps to a value/prefix that is actually in your values / prefixValues; if you removed superseded by, superceded by … is not fixed.
Genuine typos with no unique target — e.g. acccepted (does not case-fold to any allowed value).
Frontmatter-sourced values — a status: in YAML frontmatter (fix it by hand).

Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
`values`	`string[]`	`['proposed', 'rejected', 'accepted', 'deprecated']`	Exact-match allowed status values.
`prefixValues`	`string[]`	`['superseded by']`	`startsWith`-match allowed prefixes (e.g. `superseded by ADR-0042`).
`caseSensitive`	`boolean`	`false`	When `false`, comparisons are case-insensitive.

import { defineConfig } from 'madr-lint';

export default defineConfig({
  rules: {
    'madr/status-enum': ['error', {
      values: ['draft', 'review', 'final', 'archived'],
      prefixValues: [],
      caseSensitive: true,
    }],
  },
});

MADR version compatibility

Version	Applies	Notes
v2	yes	body-list `- Status: proposed` (bold) or `* Status: proposed` (plain), via the metadata bridge
v3	yes	frontmatter `status: ...`
v4	yes	frontmatter `status: ...`

When to disable

Set madr/status-enum to off when migrating from a system with a different status vocabulary. Prefer overriding values / prefixValues to preserve some validation.

Like all rules, this rule can be suppressed inline — see Suppressing rules.