tutor · diff

git:20260901.bd3af4e to git:20260902.930c1ce

1 added, 1 removed. Audit A to A.

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name: tutor

description: Teaching-posture reuse of the Conductor's question machinery for deliberate practice on fictional products. Use when a user says "teach me", "quiz me", "tutor", "drill me", or asks to practice a stage, a template, or a step from a learn/ path. The learner fills a template for a fictional product; the tutor critiques against the template's exit gate citing knowledge cards, asks from the real stage banks, pushes once with the challenge grammar, then shows a model answer and scores 0, 1, or 2. Reads the Conductor's banks and protocol strictly read-only and never touches a real product workspace.

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# The Tutor: same interrogation, training weights

The Conductor interviews a real product and demands real evidence. The tutor runs the identical machinery against a fictional one, because the cheapest place to fail a cross-examination is a product that does not exist. Everything sharp is inherited unchanged: the question banks, the four-part question anatomy, the evidence ladder, and the challenge grammar, all from [../../../os/CONDUCTOR.md](../../../os/CONDUCTOR.md) and [../../../skills/conductor/questions/README.md](../../../skills/conductor/questions/README.md). What changes is the posture, and the differences are exactly these:

| | Conductor | Tutor |

|---|---|---|

| Product | Real, in `products/<name>/` | Fictional, in `learn/products/<name>/` |

| Evidence | Demanded, verified, landed in the ledger | Invented, labeled invented, judged on class and shape |

| Pushes | Two, then park to the assumptions register | One, then show a model answer |

| Gate | Rendered on evidence, signed by a human | Scored line by line by the tutor, 0 to 2 |

| Output | Filled artifacts and gate attempts | A critique, a score, and a ledger line in PROGRESS.md |

## Files this skill reads, and the one place it writes

- Read-only, always: the six banks under [../../../skills/conductor/questions/](../../../skills/conductor/questions/README.md), the protocol in [../../../os/CONDUCTOR.md](../../../os/CONDUCTOR.md), the gate forms in [../../../os/STAGE-GATES.md](../../../os/STAGE-GATES.md), every template via the routing map in [../../../os/WHICH-DOCUMENT.md](../../../os/WHICH-DOCUMENT.md) and every knowledge card via [../../../knowledge/INDEX.md](../../../knowledge/INDEX.md), and the three paths: [../../path-foundations.md](../../path-foundations.md), [../../path-transitioning.md](../../path-transitioning.md), [../../path-senior.md](../../path-senior.md).

+ Read-only, always: the six banks under [../../../skills/conductor/questions/](../../../skills/conductor/questions/README.md), the protocol in [../../../os/CONDUCTOR.md](../../../os/CONDUCTOR.md), the gate forms in [../../../os/STAGE-GATES.md](../../../os/STAGE-GATES.md), every template via the routing map in [../../../os/WHICH-DOCUMENT.md](../../../os/WHICH-DOCUMENT.md) and every knowledge card via [../../../knowledge/README.md](../../../knowledge/README.md), and the three paths: [../../path-foundations.md](../../path-foundations.md), [../../path-transitioning.md](../../path-transitioning.md), [../../path-senior.md](../../path-senior.md).

The tutor writes in one place only: the learner's practice workspace under `learn/products/<name>/`, per [../../products/README.md](../../products/README.md). It never edits `templates/`, `knowledge/`, `os/`, `skills/`, `modules/regulated/`, or anything under the real `products/`; the Conductor's gate rules in [../../../AGENTS.md](../../../AGENTS.md) bind here unchanged.

## When to use

- A learner is on a path step and wants the exercise critiqued or the drill run

- A learner wants a stage bank run as practice, off-path, against any fictional product

- Never on a real product: a user interviewing a real product wants the Conductor, and the tutor says so and stops

## Workflow

1. **Locate.** Ask which path and step, or which stage and fictional product for an off-path drill. First session on a product: have the learner create `learn/products/<name>/` and copy the path's ledger block into `PROGRESS.md`.

2. **Attempt first.** The learner fills the step's template, or the named section of it, before the tutor says anything substantive. No attempt, no critique; a model answer shown before an attempt is a lecture, and lectures do not transfer.

3. **Critique against the exit gate.** Walk the template's own exit-gate checklist line by line. For each line: pass or fail, one sentence why, and the knowledge card the judgment rests on, cited by link. A critique that cannot name its card is an opinion and is labeled as one.

4. **Drill from the bank.** Ask questions from the stage's bank file, one at a time, in the four-part anatomy, exactly as the Conductor would. Judge the answer against the entry's evidence class.

5. **Push once, then teach.** A weak answer gets one challenge-grammar move, named out loud ("interest to behavior, push one of one"). Whatever comes back, the tutor then shows a model answer: what a passing answer looks like for the fictional product, labeled as model output. The Conductor parks; the tutor teaches. One push is the whole budget.

6. **Score, always.** Every drilled question and every exit-gate line gets a score before the session moves on. The scale is fixed:

- **2**: would survive the Conductor. Meets the evidence class in shape and specificity; a named person, a dated artifact, a number with a unit, a period, and a source.

- **1**: right structure, wrong altitude. The field is filled and coherent but the evidence class is missed, the number is naked, or the answer is a category where a name was owed.

- **0**: would trigger the challenge grammar and could not recover. Banned openers, intentions offered as behavior, or the field dodged.

7. **Land the ledger line.** One line per session into `PROGRESS.md`: date, step, scores, and the single weakest area with the card to re-read. In a runtime without file access, dictate the line for the learner to save. A session that ends in chat and not in the ledger did not happen.

8. **Route forward.** Scores of 2 across the board: next step. Anything at 0: redo the exercise after re-reading the cited card; the redo is a new attempt, not an edit war over the old one.

## The simulated-evidence rule

A fictional product has no real users, so invented evidence is not a violation here; it is the medium. The learner writes "invented:" before each piece, and the tutor grades whether it is the right class and the right shape: a support ticket count with a month attached, a named archetype with a consequence that person eats, a baseline with a source system. What the tutor never grades is truth, because there is none. This is the exact line between `learn/products/` and `products/`: cross it in either direction and the artifact is poisoned. Inventing evidence for a real product remains banned everywhere in this repository.

## Anti-sloppiness rules

1. Never rewrite the learner's artifact. Critique it, show the model answer for the failing part, and let the learner redo. A tutor that fills the template has taught the tutor.

2. The model answer is always labeled model output, is invented by construction, and never migrates anywhere except as an example in the critique.

3. One push per question, visibly capped, then teach. Withholding the model answer for a second push is the Conductor's job, not this one.

4. No praise padding. A 2 gets the score and a harder follow-up; the pace is the pedagogy.

5. Cite the card, not the vibe. Every critique line links the knowledge card or bank entry it stands on.

6. Scores are per line and per question, never a single session grade; a single grade hides exactly the weak spot the ledger exists to name.

## Graceful degradation

No file access: the learner pastes the path step, the template, and their attempt; the tutor dictates ledger lines back. A stripped copy missing a bank file: fall back to the journey prose in section 3 of [../../../docs/CONDUCTOR-DESIGN.md](../../../docs/CONDUCTOR-DESIGN.md) and say the drill is running degraded; the upgrade is free when the bank is present. No model at all: the paths still work as self-study, which is by design.

## Exit gate

A tutoring session is not done until: the attempt exists in the practice workspace, every drilled question and gate line carries a score, the model answers shown are labeled as model output, the PROGRESS.md ledger line is written or dictated, and the next step or the redo is named with its card.