Discovery

Name: Discovery
Author: boshu2

By boshu2· boshu2/agentops· 0

Convert goals and artifacts into execution packets for downstream processing.

Installation

1
Make sure Claude is on your device and in your terminal.
Skills load from ~/.claude/skills/ when Claude Code starts up — so you need it on your machine first. If you don't have it yet, install it once with the command below, then run claude in any terminal to verify.
One-time setup
```
npm i -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code
```
Already have it? Skip ahead.

Paste into Claude Code or into your terminal.

Install

git clone ht•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••••••••• •• ••••• •• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• •• •• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

This copies the whole skill folder into ~/.claude/skills/discovery-boshu2/ — the SKILL.md plus any scripts, reference docs, or templates the skill ships with. Safe default: works for every skill.

Faster alternative (instruction-only skills)

Skips the clone and grabs only the SKILL.md file. Don't use this if the skill ships Python scripts, reference markdowns, or asset templates — they won't be downloaded and the skill will fail when it tries to load them.

Quick install (SKILL.md only)

mkdir -p ~/.•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• •••• ••••• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• •• ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Restart Claude Code.
Quit and reopen Claude Code (or any other agent that loads from ~/.claude/skills/). New skills are picked up on startup.
Just ask Claude.
Skills auto-activate when your request matches the skill's description — no slash command needed. Trigger phrases live in the skill's own frontmatter; you can read them in the “What this skill does” section above.

Prefer to read the source first? Open on GitHub.

When Claude uses it

Create dense execution packets.

What this skill does

/discovery - Dense Discovery Phase Adapter

YOU MUST EXECUTE THIS WORKFLOW. Do not just describe it.

Loop position: move 1 (shape intent as BDD) plus the seed for move 3 (slice candidates) of the operating loop. Discovery turns a goal plus delegated child artifacts into one dense execution packet for /crank and /validation.

Strict Delegation Contract (default)

Discovery delegates to /brainstorm (conditional), /design (conditional), /research, /plan, and /pre-mortem via declared skill invocations. Strict delegation is the default.

Anti-pattern to reject: inlining /research work (grep + read + synthesize), collapsing /plan into an inline decomposition, skipping /pre-mortem. See ../shared/references/strict-delegation-contract.md for the full contract and supported compression escapes (--quick, --skip-brainstorm, --interactive/--auto, --no-scaffold).

See docs/learnings/orchestrator-compression-anti-pattern.md for the live compression signature. See references/isolation-contract.md for the mechanical four-lever model and the compression patterns flagged by scripts/check-skill-isolation.sh. See references/best-practices.md for the lifecycle principle + anti-pattern citation table.

Narrow Waist

Discovery does not carry raw child-skill output forward. It records artifact paths, verdicts, the hexagon: boundary block from docs/architecture/intent-to-loop-hexagon.md, and the six Context Density Rule fields:

Field	Meaning
`intent`	Behavior or capability to produce
`boundary`	Bounded context, non-goals, write scope
`evidence`	Acceptance examples, tests, gates, verdicts
`decision`	Why this plan shape was chosen
`constraint`	Safety, runtime, token, and process limits
`next_action`	Exact `/crank` or follow-up command

Everything else stays in child artifacts and is linked by path.

Discovery To Plan Port

Use the Skill Ports and Adapters vocabulary and the Intent-to-Loop Hexagon for the boundary between Discovery and Plan:

Boundary piece	Discovery contract
Inbound port	`shape_intent` from operator goal or BDD intent
Outbound port	`plan_slices` into `/plan`
Driving adapter	`/discovery` skill invocation
Driven adapter	`/plan` skill invocation plus bd/file persistence
Context packet	density block, artifact links, acceptance examples, non-goals, constraints
Guard adapter	`/pre-mortem` verdict before packet handoff

Executable acceptance: references/discovery.feature — Discovery hands dense intent across the plan_slices port (promoted from inline; soc-qk4b.2).

Execution

Run the artifact-first DAG in references/dag.md. That file owns the executable workflow, state shape, gate detail, per-step detail, and the acceptance-criteria YAML contract.

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
`--auto`	on	Fully autonomous (no human gates). Inverse of `--interactive`. Passed through to `/research` and `/plan`.
`--interactive`	off	Human gates in research and plan (STEP 3, STEP 4). Does NOT affect pre-mortem gate.
`--skip-brainstorm`	auto	Skip STEP 1 brainstorm when goal is already specific
`--complexity=<level>`	auto	Force complexity level (`fast` / `standard` / `full`)
`--no-budget`	off	Disable phase time budgets
`--no-scaffold`	off	Skip scaffold auto-invocation in STEP 4.5 (canonical name)
`--no-lifecycle`	off	DEPRECATED ALIAS for `--no-scaffold`. Honored through v2.40.0 for transition. When both flags are passed, they are equivalent.

Deprecation note: When Claude encounters --no-lifecycle on /discovery, treat it as --no-scaffold and mention the deprecation inline in the phase summary (e.g., "used deprecated --no-lifecycle, prefer --no-scaffold"). This surfaces guidance in the RPI output without a runtime parser.

Quick Start

/discovery "add user authentication"              # full discovery
/discovery --interactive "refactor payment module" # human gates in research + plan
/discovery --skip-brainstorm "fix login bug"       # skip brainstorm for specific goals
/discovery --complexity=full "migrate to v2 API"   # force full council ceremony

Output Specification

Format: compact markdown phase summary to stdout plus JSON execution packet on disk.

Files written:

.agents/research/<topic-slug>.md - research artifact path only
.agents/plans/YYYY-MM-DD-<goal-slug>.md - plan document path only
.agents/council/YYYY-MM-DD-pre-mortem-<topic>.md - pre-mortem verdict path only
.agents/rpi/execution-packet.json - latest dense packet
.agents/rpi/runs/<run-id>/execution-packet.json - per-run archive when run_id is set
.agents/rpi/phase-1-summary-YYYY-MM-DD-<goal-slug>.md - compact discovery summary

Exit signal: completion marker (<promise>DONE</promise> or <promise>BLOCKED</promise>) — see Completion Markers below.

Completion Markers

<promise>DONE</promise>      # Discovery complete, epic-id + execution-packet ready
<promise>BLOCKED</promise>   # Pre-mortem failed 3x, manual intervention needed

Troubleshooting

Read references/troubleshooting.md for common problems and solutions.

Reference Documents

references/dag.md — executable workflow, state shape, gate detail, per-step detail, acceptance-criteria YAML contract
references/complexity-auto-detect.md — precedence contract for keyword vs issue-count classification
references/idempotency-and-resume.md — re-run safety and resume behavior
references/phase-budgets.md — time budgets per complexity level
references/troubleshooting.md — common problems and solutions
references/output-templates.md — execution packet and phase summary formats
references/phase-data-contracts.md — phase artifact data contracts (cited from references/isolation-contract.md)

See also: brainstorm, design, research, plan, pre-mortem, crank, rpi, scaffold

Related skills

Documentation Co-Authoring

anthropics

Guide structured workflows for writing docs, proposals, and technical specs collaboratively.

Official

MCP Server Builder

anthropics

Build protocol servers that connect language models to external APIs and services.

OfficialComplete terms in LICENSE.txt

Ask Questions If Underspecified

trailofbits

Ask clarifying questions before starting work on ambiguous requests.

Claude Plugin Marketplace Builder

daymade

Convert a Claude skills repository into an installable marketplace with auto-updates.