Cover note to contributor

Hi @bluefing,

Thanks again for the thoughtful PRs and the quality of the test coverage you included. We reviewed all three submissions together and prepared a structured assessment so we can align on a few design and safety decisions before merging.

Please review: - docs/external_contributor_pr_assessment.md

Our intent is collaborative and staged: 1. Align on final behaviour and API semantics. 2. Confirm any guardrails needed for safety and correctness. 3. Merge in a clear order once we agree on the above.

The key points we would value your view on are: - PR #2: whether attribute checks should stay in assert_parameter or move to a dedicated assertion. - PR #3: how best to encode dry-run safety assumptions (and version/behaviour guardrails). - PR #5: flattening collision handling, malformed module strictness, and dependency namepath semantics.

If you are happy, we can use this as the basis for a quick iteration pass and then move to merge readiness.

Thanks again — the direction is strong, and we are keen to land this well.