author-internal-id-known (TN102)

Group	Default severity
Metadata	Error

Each author’s internal_id in technote.toml must resolve to an entry in the Rubin author database (authordb.yaml). An ID that the database does not know — a typo, an ID that was never registered, or a guessed value — cannot identify the author for DOI metadata. This rule also fires when the database returns a malformed record for the ID, which is a database problem rather than a technote problem.

Example of a failing technote

technote.toml

[[technote.authors]]
name = { given = "Lynne", family = "Jones" }
internal_id = "lynnej"

[TN102] Author Lynne Jones has internal_id 'lynnej', which is not in the author database. Did you mean 'jonesrl' (R. Lynne Jones, matched by name)?

When the linter can confidently match the author in the author database — by ORCID, or by a single near-exact name match — it suggests the likely ID (see Suggested author IDs). Verify the suggestion before using it; it never changes whether the command passes.

How to fix it

Replace the internal_id with the author’s actual ID from authordb.yaml, then synchronize the author’s metadata:

[[technote.authors]]
name = { given = "Lynne", family = "Jones" }
internal_id = "jonesrl"

documenteer technote sync-authors

If the author genuinely has no entry in the author database, add one by submitting a pull request to lsst/lsst-texmf — see Maintaining author metadata. If the finding says the author’s database record is malformed, the fix belongs in the database entry itself, not in your technote: correct the entry in lsst/lsst-texmf.

See also

• TN101 — the entry declares no internal_id at all.

• TN103 — the author database could not be reached to verify the ID.

• Maintaining author metadata — how technote author metadata connects to the author database.