target · diff
git:20260817.0cc07d9 to git:20260817.f04083f
7 added, 26 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: target
description: Define how unsupervised work is judged before it runs. Use when work will run without a human watching, optimizing toward something.
---
- ## Extract
-
- From the conversation/context/user:
-
- - The **path**, decided — shape's result, or as good — for work that will run without a human watching.
- - What the run is **optimizing toward** — the success the contract must pin down before the run starts.
-
- ## Gate
-
- Proceed only when: the work will run without a human watching, and its success is not yet defined outside the run — the run never defines its own success.
-
- Anything else, say which in one plain line — never write the contract anyway:
-
- - A human will watch each step → no contract needed; proceed with the decided path.
- - Success cannot be made mechanical → the work is not ready to run unsupervised — say so and stop.
-
## Build
- Build the contract by invoking each named skill with the Skill tool where its condition holds:
+ Success is defined before the run, not by it. Build the contract by invoking each named skill with the Skill tool where its condition holds:
- What "done" means reads two ways that would build different things → use **clarify** skill.
- The user holds a bar they can't yet state → use **elicit** skill.
- - Nothing exists to react to yet → use **draft** skill on the contract itself: one observable that means done (not a dashboard), the literal command that reads it, which direction is better and the value that ends the work, a cap that ends it even unmet, what must keep passing while optimizing — every choice made on the user's behalf surfaced.
+ - Nothing exists to react to yet → use **draft** skill on the contract itself: one observable that means done — a single reading, not a dashboard — the literal command that reads it, which direction is better and the value that ends the work, a cap that ends it even unmet, what must keep passing while optimizing, and every choice made on the user's behalf surfaced.
- Any part leans on someone's judgment — "clean", "better", "reasonable" → use **anchor** skill: replace it with a trigger a machine evaluates identically every time. The dry run is the anchored rule deciding one real case — record the value it reads now. A command that will not run fails here, loudly.
- The drafted contract → use **judge** skill, on the claim: the cheapest way to pass is the real work. Start from the known false-pass catalog in `cheat-museum.md`, then hunt false passes specific to this contract.
Each open false pass judge finds re-enters as an amendment — back through the drafting and anchoring conditions above — until the verdict stands.
- ## Output
-
- The success contract is the result, locked by the user: the parts the drafting named, the dry-run value recorded, each cheap false pass closed. It locks only when judge's verdict stands and the user locks it.
+ ## The contract
- Before the run starts, only the human can:
+ Hand it back as short bullets, one part per line: each part the drafting named, the dry-run value recorded, each cheap false pass closed. It locks only when judge's verdict stands and the user locks it.
- - cap the spend — a disposable key: the contract bounds correctness, only the key bounds cost;
- - watch the first cycle to see the run use what the contract names.
+ Two things stay open for the human alone, before the run starts: capping the spend with a disposable key, since the contract bounds correctness and only the key bounds cost; and watching the first cycle to see the run use what the contract names.
- If the running work later games the contract, the cheat is a bug in the contract — amend the contract here and rerun from the last honest point, never patch the worker.
+ If the running work later games the contract, the cheat is a bug in the contract: amend it here and rerun from the last honest point.
- Then return to the run the contract exists for. The contracting is spent once the user locks — anything further re-enters as an amendment to the contract, never as a new bar invented mid-run.
+ A human will watch each step → no contract needed; proceed with the decided path. Success cannot be made mechanical → the work is not ready to run unsupervised — say so and stop.