Crate Classification Audit (2026-05-08)

Crate Classification Audit (2026-05-08)

Snapshot note: This is a point-in-time audit snapshot from 2026-05-08, used to inform the workspace reorg + crate-org-followup work. Crate classifications below reflect the pre-fix state — see 2026-05-08-workspace-reorg-outcome.md and 2026-05-08-crate-org-followup-design.md for what actually shipped.

This audit classifies every crate in crates/ against five labels:

• CORE — compiled into the default vox-cli binary (no feature flags required)
• PLUGIN — heavy deps or hardware-specific; ships as a dylib plugin
• SHARED — used by both CORE crates and PLUGIN crates; must remain in the workspace
• DEAD — zero consumers in Cargo.toml; candidate for deletion after verification
• MISPLACED — compiled as CORE today but should be extracted to a plugin

Methodology: grep -r "<crate>" crates/ --include="Cargo.toml" to count consumers, combined with review of vox-cli/Cargo.toml direct/transitive deps. Feature-gated-only deps (optional = true) are noted.

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Summary Table

Crate	Classification	Consumers	Notes / Action
workspace-hack	SHARED	all	cargo-hakari generated; keep
vox-bounded-fs	CORE	18	async FS jailing used widely
vox-secrets	CORE	21	auth/keys, used in CLI, orchestrator, populi
vox-cli	CORE	0 (it IS the binary)	default binary
vox-cli-core	CORE	1 (vox-cli)	CLI utilities
vox-compiler	CORE	7	Vox language compiler
vox-config	CORE	8	config types
vox-container	CORE	4	sandboxed execution
vox-corpus	CORE	3	dataset pipeline
vox-db	CORE	4	SQLite/Turso store
vox-eval	CORE (optional)	1	behind dep:vox-eval in populi
vox-identity	CORE	4	auth identity
vox-crypto	CORE	3	crypto primitives
vox-jsonschema-util	CORE	3	JSON schema
vox-mesh-types	SHARED	2	mesh type definitions used by core + plugin
vox-openai-sse	SHARED	2	SSE wire used by oratio + orchestrator
vox-openai-wire	SHARED	2	OpenAI wire types
vox-orchestrator	CORE	5	task orchestrator
vox-orchestrator-types	SHARED	4	types shared between orchestrator + plugins
vox-plugin-api	SHARED	14	plugin ABI surface; MUST stay
vox-plugin-catalog	CORE	2	SSOT plugin catalog
vox-plugin-host	CORE	4	plugin loader/discovery
vox-package	CORE	2	project management
vox-populi	CORE	3	ML inference/training dispatch
vox-primitives	CORE	4	shared primitive types
vox-protocol	CORE	3	A2A protocol
vox-reqwest-defaults	CORE	6	HTTP client defaults
vox-repository	CORE	2	repo abstraction
vox-actor-runtime	CORE	2	runtime helpers
vox-scaling-policy	CORE	2	scaling decisions
vox-ssg	CORE (direct dep)	1 (vox-cli)	static site gen; see MISPLACED note
vox-checksum-manifest	CORE	1	checksums
vox-install-policy	CORE	1	install policy
vox-capability-registry	CORE	3	capability registry
vox-constrained-gen	CORE	3	constrained generation
vox-project-scaffold	CORE	1	project scaffolding
vox-publisher	CORE (partial)	1	publishing; social adapters behind features
vox-exec-grammar	DEAD	0	no consumers in workspace
vox-grammar-export	DEAD	0	no consumers in workspace
vox-schola	DEAD	0	no consumers (merge_qlora uses inline types)
vox-scientia-core	DEAD	0	no consumers in workspace
vox-scientia-social	DEAD	0	no consumers in workspace
vox-scientia-ingest	DEAD	0	no consumers; ingestion pipeline unused
vox-search	CORE	many	agent retrieval execution (execute_search_plan, MCP); see search-retrieval-ssot-2026.md
vox-socrates-policy	DEAD	0	policy engine; no consumer
vox-spool	DEAD	0	spool subsystem; no consumer
vox-tools	DEAD	0	tools crate; re-exported via oratio (orphaned)
vox-webhook	DEAD	0	webhook handlers; no consumer
vox-workflow-runtime	DEAD (optional)	0 direct / 1 optional	optional in vox-cli behind workflow-runtime feature
vox-mcp-meta	DEAD	0	MCP meta; no consumers
vox-mcp-registry	DEAD	0	MCP registry stub; orphaned
vox-doc-inventory	DEAD	0	doc inventory; no consumers
vox-integration-tests	DEAD	0	test crate with no callers; uses vox-lsp
vox-test-harness	DEAD	0	test harness; no consumers
vox-lsp	CORE (optional)	1 (orchestrator behind feature)	behind toestub-gate feature
vox-openclaw-runtime	CORE (optional)	2 (orchestrator + runtime, mandatory)	OpenClaw / ARS runtime facade; used at runtime
vox-audio-ingress	MISPLACED	1 (self-referential via vox-oratio dep)	brings in vox-oratio; should be PLUGIN
vox-browser	DEAD	0	browser abstraction; no consumer; MISPLACED into vox-plugin-browser
vox-forge	CORE (optional)	1 (vox-cli behind coderabbit feature)	GitHub/GitLab integration
vox-git	CORE (optional)	1 (vox-cli behind coderabbit feature)	git integration
vox-gamify	CORE (optional)	0 direct / 1 optional	gamification; optional in vox-cli
vox-code-audit	CORE (optional)	1 optional	completion guard; optional
vox-doc-pipeline	CORE	1	doc pipeline runner
vox-dashboard	CORE (optional)	1 (vox-cli behind dashboard feature)	VS Code extension dashboard
vox-skills	CORE (optional)	1 (vox-cli behind ars feature)	skill registry ARS shim
vox-oratio	MISPLACED	2 optional	Candle Whisper; should be fully in vox-plugin-oratio
vox-tensor	SHARED	4 (all optional or plugin)	GPU tensor; needed by plugins; see note
vox-ml-cli	CORE	1 (vox-cli)	vox mens subcommand
vox-populi	CORE	3	populi inference; hosts burn/candle gated code
—	—	—	—
PLUGIN crates
vox-plugin-browser	PLUGIN	0 runtime consumers	CDP browser plugin
vox-plugin-cloud	PLUGIN	0 runtime consumers	cloud sync plugin
vox-plugin-mens-candle-cuda	PLUGIN	0 runtime consumers	Candle CUDA ML backend
vox-plugin-noop-code	PLUGIN	0 runtime	test fixture
vox-plugin-noop-code-bad-abi	PLUGIN	0 runtime	ABI rejection test fixture
vox-plugin-noop-skill	PLUGIN	0 runtime	skill discover test fixture
vox-plugin-nvml-probe	PLUGIN	0 runtime	NVIDIA NVML hardware probe
vox-plugin-oratio	PLUGIN	0 runtime	Whisper STT plugin
vox-plugin-oratio-mic	PLUGIN	0 runtime	microphone capture plugin
vox-plugin-populi-mesh	PLUGIN	0 runtime	mesh transport + skill
vox-plugin-script-execution	PLUGIN	0 runtime	script execution plugin
vox-plugin-skill-*	PLUGIN	0 runtime	agent skills (skill-only plugins)
vox-plugin-tensor-burn-wgpu	PLUGIN	0 runtime	Burn + wgpu tensor backend plugin

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DEAD crates — Deletion Candidates

The following crates have zero consumers in Cargo.toml files across the workspace. They are safe to remove after verifying they have no external users or build-script roles:

Crate	Reason
vox-exec-grammar	No Cargo.toml consumer found
vox-grammar-export	No Cargo.toml consumer found
vox-schola	Inline serde types in vox-ml-cli/merge_qlora.rs replaced it; plugin owns merge
vox-scientia-core	No consumers; social/ingestion pipeline not wired
vox-scientia-social	No consumers
vox-scientia-ingest	No consumers
vox-socrates-policy	No consumers
vox-spool	No consumers
vox-webhook	No consumers
vox-tools	Orphaned; vox-oratio was extracted to a plugin
vox-mcp-meta	MCP meta stub; no consumers
vox-mcp-registry	Orphaned MCP registry
vox-doc-inventory	No consumers
vox-integration-tests	Self-contained test binary but no CI wiring found
vox-test-harness	No consumers
vox-browser	BrowserAutomation extracted to vox-plugin-browser; this crate is the old host-side abstraction with zero consumers left

Action: Before deleting each, verify cargo check --workspace still compiles. Run cargo tree -p vox-cli | grep <crate> for each — if empty, proceed to delete.

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MISPLACED crates — Extraction Candidates

Crate	Current State	Recommended Action
vox-oratio	Used optionally in vox-ml-cli and vox-orchestrator; pulls in heavy Candle deps	Finish extraction to vox-plugin-oratio; all remaining uses should go through the plugin dispatch boundary
vox-audio-ingress	Only consumer is itself (via vox-oratio dep); orphaned	Delete or fold into vox-plugin-oratio-mic
vox-ssg	In vox-cli directly; SSG is a publishing concern, not core CLI	Consider extracting SSG commands to a skill plugin; low urgency

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SHARED crates — Must Remain

These are used by both CORE and PLUGIN code paths and cannot be safely moved:

Crate	Reason
vox-plugin-api	The stable ABI surface itself
vox-plugin-host	Host-side discovery + loader; called from vox-cli
vox-plugin-catalog	SSOT used by vox-cli CI gates
vox-mesh-types	Mesh types shared across core and populi-mesh plugin
vox-orchestrator-types	Task/budget types shared across orchestrator and plugin dispatch
vox-tensor	data, grpo, replay, lora_config modules used by both plugins and core; GPU-gated modules only used in plugins

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vox-tensor — Deduplication Note

vox-tensor currently duplicates several types that also exist in vox-populi/src/mens/tensor/:

• LoraConfig / lora_memory_estimate — both vox-tensor/src/lora_config.rs and vox-populi/src/mens/tensor/lora/ define them
• GPU-gated modules (lora, optim, tensor, train, vox_nn) — these should move to vox-plugin-tensor-burn-wgpu; the remaining always-compiled modules (data, grpo, replay, lora_config) are the actual shared surface

Recommended: Keep vox-tensor as a SHARED crate but shrink its scope to only the non-GPU modules (data, grpo, replay, lora_config). The GPU modules belong in vox-plugin-tensor-burn-wgpu/src/.

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Catalog Dead Entries

Two plugin IDs appear in catalog.toml but have no corresponding crate in crates/:

Catalog ID	Status
execution-api	No vox-plugin-execution-api crate; referenced only in catalog with bundled-in = []
stub-check	No vox-plugin-stub-check crate; referenced only in catalog with bundled-in = []

These are pre-declared future plugins. They are harmless (not in any bundle), but their default-source points to non-existent GitHub repos. They should either be removed from the catalog or have placeholder crates created.

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Recommendations (Priority Order)

1. Delete DEAD crates (P1, low risk): Start with vox-exec-grammar, vox-grammar-export, vox-schola. Run cargo check after each batch.
2. Remove catalog ghost entries (P2, trivial): Delete execution-api and stub-check entries from catalog.toml or add placeholder crates.
3. Finish oratio extraction (P2): Move remaining vox-oratio uses to vox-plugin-oratio dispatch.
4. Shrink vox-tensor GPU surface (P3): Move lora, optim, tensor, train, vox_nn into vox-plugin-tensor-burn-wgpu. Keep non-GPU modules.
5. Delete vox-browser (P3): Zero consumers; vox-plugin-browser is the canonical implementation.