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 Prefix matching handles transitional states such as superseded by ADR-0042 matching the superseded by prefix.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status: superseded by ADR-0042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).

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`prefixValues`	`string[]`	`['superseded by']`	`startsWith`-match allowed prefixes (e.g. `superseded by ADR-0042`).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.