Agent Skills: Directive-Braindump Triage — execute only the residual

Directive-Braindump Triage — execute only the residual

Given an operator directive-braindump (a *.braindump.md / prompt-aux-N-style scratch of mixed directives), produce/update ONE provenance ledger recording WHICH corpus artifact already fulfills each directive — so a future amnesic agent runs only the verified residual.

Canonical output (single file): a themed provenance ledger — default in the host's planning/scratch dir as <theme>-provenance-ledger.md; repo-scoped if the braindump is repo-bound. Why: a braindump without a provenance ledger gets re-learned. A directive without application is a dead file. This is the cure for "we keep re-learning what we already knew."

Input: path to a directive-braindump file. Optional arg = an existing ledger path to update.

Distinct-from-siblings (DRY — composes, never duplicates)

• agentic-tool-intake (skill) decides whether to ADOPT an external tool → this classifies operator DIRECTIVES already in hand. Different input, different verdict space.
• protocols/agentic-tool-lifecycle.md (protocol) governs distill→promote of tools → this triages intentions, then feeds the lifecycle when a residual warrants a new tool.
• corpus-firing-audit (sibling skill): audits the standing corpus for firing-vs-theater (artifact → application). This triages a braindump file (directive → artifact). Opposite traversal; pair the two skills, never merge them.
• anti-theater grounding (host rule, if present) → used in P6 (no hallucinated provenance).

Idempotency contract (non-negotiable)

• Probe before acting — read the braindump's PROCESSED banner (if any) + any existing ledger FIRST; never re-run a triage that already converged.
• Update in place — append/refresh the SAME ledger; never spawn a parallel doc (DRY).
• Convergence — no corpus change ⇒ semantically identical ledger (only generated-at differs).
• Read-only corpus — the ONLY writes are the ledger + a PROCESSED banner on the source braindump. Never re-execute already-DONE directives.

Steps

P0 — Recon (read-only, observe-before-assume). OBSERVE before assuming: read the braindump; probe the auto-loaded corpus (the host's rules dir, memory index, tickets via the project tracker / MCP) AND the environment relevant to the directives. Read any existing ledger. Treat felt-certainty over an unprobed corpus as a smell (a Dunning-Kruger guard), not a signal.

P1 — Decompose + harmonize. Restate the braindump as N atomic directives — edited, corrected, expanded — grouped by ontological family (e.g. Posture · Validation · Provenance · Governance · Meta-learning · Strategy). This is the polished canonical form; preserve the raw scratch as source.

P2 — Classify × provenance. For each directive emit: status ∈ {DONE · OPEN · DROP-EXPLICIT · COVERED} + the artifact that fulfills it (rule / memory / ticket / PR / commit / skill). Anti-re-learning rule: a directive already satisfied by the corpus is DONE, not pending. Session meta-directives (slash-commands, --auto-merge, motivational asides) are EXCLUDED — they are execution authorizations, not reusable content.

P3 — Inter-dependency graph (mermaid DAG): recursive · sequential · inter-dependent · independent · blocked. Mark the critical residual chain + transversal/independent items.

P4 — Residual roadmap (Eisenhower 2×2). ONLY the verified-residual gets a disposition: Q1 ticket+execute · Q2 ticket+schedule · Q3 ticket+delegate · Q4 note-or-drop-explicit. Drop decisions are logged with rationale (drop-explicit > unpaid memory-debt).

P5 — Anti-re-learning note + persist. Record the meta-lesson (provenance + sharpen-an-existing- fire-point > add a passive rule). Stamp the source braindump with a PROCESSED <YYYY-MM-DD> (ISO-8601) banner pointing at the ledger. The pair is atomic (rubric C1, pilot #354): banner-without-ledger-row OR ledger-row-without-banner = the triage FAILED — an amnesic future session will either re-learn the dump (no banner) or re-hunt the dump (no row). If either write fails, mark the run incomplete and fix the missing half before closing.

P6 — Verify + brief. Confirm every "DONE" cites a real, locatable artifact (no hallucinated provenance — every claim points at something a reader can open); emit a short briefing (N DONE / OPEN / DROP + the residual next-action).

Example (input → output)

Input: directive-braindump-triage docs/scratch/posture.braindump.md

Output — a provenance ledger (excerpt):

# posture — provenance ledger (generated 2026-06-22)
| # | directive (atomic)             | status        | fulfilling artifact            |
|---|--------------------------------|---------------|--------------------------------|
| 1 | recon the env before assuming  | DONE          | rule: <env-recon rule>         |
| 2 | stamp agent-authored tickets   | DONE          | rule: <ticket-provenance rule> |
| 3 | add a posture self-test        | OPEN          | — (residual → Q2 ticket+sched) |
| 4 | rename every internal variable | DROP-EXPLICIT | rationale: out-of-scope, low value |
Residual: only #3.  DAG: #3 independent.  Eisenhower: Q2.

Re-running with no corpus change ⇒ the same ledger (only the generated date differs) — the idempotency contract. Directives #1/#2 are never re-executed (already DONE); #4 is logged-dropped, not silently abandoned.

Guard-rails

Recon-before-assume · Dunning-Kruger guard · never re-execute already-DONE directives · escalate to a human only post-recon when genuinely beyond reach · stamp any created ticket as agent-authored · auto-merge only within the host's standing-authorization guardrails · transcribe the delegation heritage (see protocols/agent-delegation.md) on any delegation · keep outputs secret-clean.

Provenance

Genesis: distilled as the form-correspondent of an operator agentic-posture braindump in a downstream project's prompt-library, then elevated to a user-scope skill. Promoted here via the protocols/agentic-tool-lifecycle.md distill→promote path after clearing the ADR-005 ≥2-dogfood-cycle gate — two ratified cycles (the triage analyses of an agentic-posture braindump and a repo-inventory braindump). Cross-link slug: [[directive-braindump-triage]].