/mold

Use this skill when the user has a fuzzy feature idea, bug symptom, or design direction and wants a coherent spec or issue set before implementation.

Do not use it for free-form discussion with no artifact intent (/culture), direct implementation (/cook), or research-only questions (/briesearch).

Flow

1. Route — pick a starting mode from the input shape (see references/modes.md) and announce it in one line. If the user's framing rests on a false premise or a loaded assumption, name it before routing.
2. Dialogue — build shared understanding through the smallest useful question to the user, but contribute at maximum useful depth between questions (full options, named edge cases, concrete evidence — not gestural sketches). Ground every critical claim with cheez-search, cheez-read, or a Validate Cycle (references/validate-cycle.md). Track contradictions across turns; if turn N contradicts an earlier conclusion, flag and resolve it before continuing.
3. Sketch — for any feature touching >1 module or a new public interface, run the shape check (references/shape-check.md) on the touched symbols, then lock seams in pseudocode signatures before talking spec content. Default to full signatures, not hand-waving.
4. Two-key handshake — both the user (explicit verb) and the agent (coherence self-check) must agree before extraction. See references/handshake.md.
5. Curdle — write the approved spec to .cheese/specs/<slug>.md (and optional .cheese/issues/<slug>-NNN.md). Format and slug rules in references/curdle.md.
6. Hand off — once the spec is on disk, prompt the next step via the shared handoff gate in ../../shared/handoff-gate.md. Never dispatch before the user selects; after a non-stop selection, run the selected downstream skill immediately.

Modes

Mode	Use when	Goal
Explore	The idea is vague	Identify the real problem and pain point
Ground	A file, bug, or existing doc is named	Verify facts against evidence
Shape	The goal is known but approach is open	Compare viable options (Do Nothing always included)
Sketch	Interfaces or module boundaries matter	Lock responsibilities and seams
Grill	A favoured approach needs stress-testing	Steelman the rejected option, find weak assumptions and edge cases
Diagnose	A symptom, failure, or trace is supplied	Build a Loop → reproduce → hypothesize → confirm root cause

Full mode definitions, exit criteria, and user knobs in references/modes.md.

Preferred tools and fallbacks

Code search, reading, and editing (including spec writing) all go through the cheez-* skills (/cheez-search, /cheez-read, /cheez-write) — see those skills for tool selection rules. Shape checks specifically use cheez-search callers (kind: "callers") plus tilth_deps; the procedure lives in references/shape-check.md.

Beyond cheez-* there are mold-specific tools:

Need	Prefer	Fallback
External validation	/briesearch with Context7/Tavily	user-provided docs, repo docs, or note as unverified

Optional tools accelerate the work; missing tools do not block the dialogue. When evidence is unavailable, mark the affected claim [?] until settled.

Sub-agent context gate

/mold keeps the dialogue, contradictions, approval state, and the two-key handshake in the parent context — those never delegate. Spawn a read-only grounding sub-agent only when validation would flood the conversation with raw evidence or graph output:

• External validation needs deep /briesearch evidence, three or more doc fetches, or two or more independent search angles.
• Shape check touches more than 5 symbols, fans out across many modules, or requires large caller/dependency traversals.
• Diagnose mode needs bulky logs, traces, or search output before a concise root-cause hypothesis can be formed.

The sub-agent returns a digest: a claim table, shape-check summary, or root-cause evidence summary with citations and confidence. The parent reads that digest, asks the user the smallest useful next question, and still owns the handshake. Do not spawn sub-agents for normal dialogue, the approval gate, or curdle/spec writing.

Digest size, parent-vs-sub-agent split, and harness-agnostic sub-agent selection live in the shared kernel at skills/age/references/sub-agent-gate.md.

Approval gate

Curdle requires the two-key handshake: an explicit user verb (e.g. curdle, ship it) and the agent's coherence self-check. The full checklist, mandatory gates, and override semantics live in references/handshake.md — do not duplicate them here.

Before the handshake fires, also run the agent-introduced-scope check (references/handshake.md § Agent-introduced scope): list every distinguishing noun in Approach / Decisions / Interface sketches, grep the prior user turns for each, and flag any unmatched noun as [AGENT-INTRODUCED]. The user must explicitly approve each flagged item before extraction — silent inclusion of an agent-introduced feature is the cardinal sin. Curdle is the single chokepoint for this check; downstream skills (/cook, etc.) trust the spec frontmatter and do not re-block, so the gate must fully resolve here.

If any gate is unmet, propose the smallest next question or evidence check. Write artifacts only after both keys pass.

Output paths

Default to project-local cheese artifacts when the user wants files:

• Spec: .cheese/specs/<slug>.md
• Issues: .cheese/issues/<slug>-001.md, .cheese/issues/<slug>-002.md, ...

--hard

/mold --hard propagates --hard through to /cook at handoff (any of the cook-flavoured options below carries the flag forward). Mold itself runs no gate — the metacognitive vibecheck fires later, at /cure's share-for-review boundary. See skills/hard-cheese/SKILL.md and skills/hard-cheese/references/composition.md.

Handoff

Pipeline: culture → [mold] → cook → press → age → cure → ship

After the spec is written, ask the user via the shared handoff gate in ../../shared/handoff-gate.md. Lead each option with the verb (what the user wants to do next); the skill command (with the spec path and any in-scope --hard propagation) is the backing detail. Default options vary with the shape-check verdict:

Low- and medium-blast-radius specs (verdict low or medium):

• Implement the spec (recommended) — /cook .cheese/specs/<slug>.md.
• Implement and auto-review — /cook --auto .cheese/specs/<slug>.md, chains straight through /press → /age → /cure autonomously, fixing every medium-or-above finding across up to two cure passes. Stops at the final cure pass; opening or updating the PR stays a manual step. Offer when acceptance criteria are explicit and the user has signalled they want the pipeline to run forward without per-step approval. Never pre-select; auto mode is opt-in.
• Research more first — /briesearch, gather more external evidence before implementing.
• Stop — dispatch none; leave the spec for later.

High-blast-radius specs (verdict high only):

The spec is large enough that per-phase context contamination becomes a real concern: review reasoning softens when the same window contains the cook reasoning, and the parent context bloats across phases. Offer the fresh-context orchestrator and the manual compaction path:

• Run the full pipeline in fresh-context isolation (recommended) — /ultracook .cheese/specs/<slug>.md, autonomous chain (cook → press → age → cure → age → cure → age, all --auto) with each phase running inside its own sub-agent, blind to prior phases.
• Implement manually, one phase at a time — /cook .cheese/specs/<slug>.md.
• Compact and resume by hand — dispatch none; clear context, then dispatch /cook .cheese/specs/<slug>.md or /ultracook .cheese/specs/<slug>.md directly. (/cheese --continue scans phase handoff slugs only — fresh specs don't surface there until cook lands a slug — so dispatching the explicit command is the resumption path here.)
• Stop — dispatch none; leave the spec for later.

/cook --auto is omitted from the high-blast-radius offer set: with a large footprint, the fresh-context property of /ultracook is the actual motivation for going autonomous, and the in-session chain it offers is the wrong transport for that need. Never pre-select an autonomous option; the user must opt in. medium blast radius keeps the standard handoff because the in-session /cook --auto chain is still the right tool for that footprint — the fresh-context premium is only worth paying when the spec actually crosses module boundaries broadly enough to flip the verdict to high.

Rules

• Dialogue first; artifacts are the by-product.
• Do not implement code.
• Do not write production files before the approval gate.
• Do not silently settle uncertain claims.
• Apply the shared voice kernel (lives at skills/age/references/voice.md in this repo): correct false premises, flag confidence as certain | speculating | don't know on each critical claim, steelman before dismissing, ask the smallest useful question while contributing at maximum useful depth.