goat

/goat

Shared Conventions

Read .goat-flow/skill-docs/skill-preamble.md for shared conventions.

Boundary Commands

• NEVER: Investigate implementation or make changes before routing.
• ALWAYS: Honor explicit invocations; answer simple facts directly; split other intents and route each.
• DEFER TO: Routed skills, direct execution for simple changes, or direct answers.

If a symptom tempts code reading, STOP. The dispatcher routes; the routed skill investigates.

Excuse	Reality
"I can see it - routing is overhead"	Route before investigation.
"The user said 'just fix it'"	Route to /goat-debug.

How It Works

0. EXPLICIT PASS-THROUGH - named goat-* invocation: dispatch immediately with the remaining text as its brief; skip UNDERSTAND, GATHER, and reclassification. The target skill owns Step 0.
1. UNDERSTAND (inferred only) - classify intent; split multiple intents; ask only if order matters.
   • Simple-fact fast path: for one factual question, answer directly after UNDERSTAND; skip GATHER and the Route Snapshot.
2. GATHER (inferred skill or direct-execution routing only) - before routing, check:
   • Ask-first boundaries: compare request-named files with active instruction boundaries; no matching request file -> target-files=unknown
   • Routed skills own learning-loop retrieval; do not pre-read their learning-loop indexes in the dispatcher
   • Direct execution only: run the shared preamble's INDEX-first retrieval before emitting the Route Snapshot
   • If the boundary scan or direct-execution retrieval fails, note gather-degraded and route anyway
   • Only direct-execution snapshots include the retrieval result
3. ROUTE (inferred skill or direct-execution only) - dispatch using the map. Emit a Route Snapshot:

Intent: <classified user intent>
Route: </goat-* skill or direct path>
Depth: <user request | destination Step 0 | not applicable>
Rationale: <verified routing rule and boundary state>
Relevant prior learnings: <direct route: matches | none | retrieval miss; routed skill: omit>

Only user-requested depth is forwarded; otherwise destination Step 0 selects. Markers are not depth arguments. Direct: not applicable; quality: no Route Snapshot.

Route Map

Intent	Route
Bug, failure, unexpected behaviour; verify a fix	/goat-debug
Browser-visible issue	Browser evidence first; then /goat-debug (Diagnose mode)
Understand, explain, explore unfamiliar code	/goat-debug (Investigate mode)
GOAT Flow setup/process/harness/skills quality assessment	goat-flow quality CLI/dashboard prompt flow (no goat skill wrapper)
Code quality review, area audit, diff check	/goat-review
Multi-perspective critique	/goat-critique
Security, compliance, dependency audit	/goat-security
Comment, documentation, naming, or private-placement remediation	/goat-clarity
Testing gaps, coverage, verification planning	/goat-qa
Bare task path (no action verb)	Bare or ambiguous task paths are read-only context. Do not update .active, milestone status, or code from a path alone
Plan/design or non-trivial build/change	/goat-plan; build/change carries return-to-implement, plan/design stops after planning
Hotfix or simple implementation (1-2 files, obvious change)	No skill; use execution loop directly
Simple question	Answer directly

Constraints

• MUST respect explicit skill invocations - no reclassification
• MUST NOT investigate implementation or make changes before routing; the Simple-fact fast path may read only the minimum source or reference needed to answer
• MUST understand intent conversationally, not via keyword lookup - 0-2 clarification questions max; route with stated assumption if still ambiguous
• MUST emit a Route Snapshot for every inferred skill or direct-execution dispatch - simple-fact answers are exempt
• MUST split multi-intent requests into numbered intents and route each
• MUST pass the complete brief and preserve context; return-to-implement preserves build authorization, but Ask First boundaries still gate