Diagnose and (where houseCARL can) repair the dark / grey / black-face NPC bug in Skyrim SE — resolve the NPC to a FormKey, compare the load-order record winner against the VFS facegen file winner, read and write the winning facegen mesh's values, place the correct facegen as a winning override, or forward the matching appearance. Use when an NPC has a dark, grey, black, brown, or discolored face, a head darker than its body or a neck seam, a face "fine in xEdit but wrong in game", a whole mod's NPCs gone dark after an ESL-compaction or merge, a missing or headless face, or the player's own face turned grey — or when the user mentions FaceGen, facegeom/facetint, the dark face bug, or Face Discoloration Fix. Load before judging any face bug — the fix hinges on which of two precedence systems (record vs file) wins.
Work with Skyrim Special Edition load-order records and assets through the houseCARL MCP server — set or switch the MO2 instance, inspect active or disabled plugins and conflict trees, read records, query across plugins, author reviewable patch ESPs, create or remove records, edit leveled lists and composed structs, diff and resolve, edit NIF meshes and facegen, author dialogue, audit the SkyPatcher and SKSE runtime layers, compact or merge plugins, drive Papyrus compile/decompile and BSA archives, and look mods up on Nexus. Also the router for the bundled Skyrim helper skills (mutagen-reference, papyrus-reference, biped-slot-reference, skypatcher-authoring, spid-authoring, kid-authoring, dialogue-authoring, facegen-diagnostics, oar-authoring, skse-plugin-authoring, papyrus-optimization, tool-output-awareness, bulk-record-jobs). Use whenever the user mentions houseCARL, an MO2 modlist, plugins, load order, conflicts, ESP patches, overrides, a record type (ARMO/WEAP/NPC_/LVLI/MGEF/…), leveled lists, keywords,
Plan and run bulk record jobs over the Skyrim load order via houseCARL — catalogues, audits, item/recipe/link graphs, conflict surveys, and batch patch rebuilds: any job that turns MANY records into ONE structured deliverable. Routes per-record loops to the bulk primitives (defined_in= scope, list-valued references=, group_by= counts, winner_fields=, resolve_names=, format=json, housecarl_resolve, housecarl_diff_record, CopyFrom/composes= batch writes) and standardizes on one canonical JSON shape. Use when the user wants a catalogue, index, spreadsheet, audit, or book of armors/weapons/NPCs/recipes/spells, asks what crafts or references what across plugins, who wins contested records, wants a compatibility patch rebuilt against a new mod version — and in ANY fan-out subagent task told to "extract X and return JSON/a table". Load BEFORE the first query or the first line of an output schema — per-record loops and schema drift are locked in by the first call.
Find armor, clothing, or any equippable record that sits on a given Skyrim biped slot via houseCARL — translate a slot number, vanilla name, or community label into its `BodyTemplate.FirstPersonFlags` bit value and filter the load order with `housecarl_cross_plugin_query` `where ... has`, matching multi-slot pieces an exact-match misses. Use when the user wants to find or list every armor on a biped slot, tag or patch items by equip slot (slot 52 / SOS / pelvis, back or cape slots, a mask or fur-clip slot), audit biped-slot conflicts between mods, find what occupies slot 32 / 52 / a modder slot, or asks which slot a piece uses or what slot number maps to which FirstPersonFlags value. This finds and filters records BY slot — distributing keywords to those items is `kid-authoring`, editing a record's own fields is `skypatcher-authoring`. Load before composing any "armor on slot X" query — the mapping is non-obvious (slot N = bit N-30), so a hand-guessed mask silently filters the wrong slot.
Author or interpret Skyrim dialogue at the data layer via houseCARL — create dialogue topics (DIAL) and lines (INFO) in a new plugin, wire them to a branch and quest, attach result (TIF) scripts, write the start-game-enabled-quest .seq, check voiced lines for their .fuz, and validate a topic's or quest's dialogue graph. Use when the user wants to add or write dialogue, add a line to a topic, create an NPC greeting or conversation, author a dialogue branch or quest dialogue, wire dialogue to a quest stage, attach a result script to a line, make a start-game-enabled quest's dialogue actually start, fix dialogue that never plays / never fires / went silent, or resolve a dropped-line dialogue conflict — or asks what a dialogue topic does, why a line won't fire, or to audit a mod's dialogue. This authors the dialogue RECORDS — distributing forms to NPCs is SPID, keywords to items is KID, editing a record's own fields is SkyPatcher. Load before composing or judging any DIAL/INFO — Skyrim plays nothing unless the Cr
Author or interpret KID (Keyword Item Distributor) `_KID.ini` files — runtime, no-ESP distribution of keywords onto items (weapons, armor, ammo, magic effects, potions, scrolls, books, soul gems, spells, enchantments, and more), from the bundled KID grammar reference. Use when the user wants to write or fix a `_KID` ini, add or distribute a keyword to items, tag all iron weapons / heavy armor / food / soul gems / a whole mod's gear with a keyword, filter items by name, archetype, equip slot, enchanted or templated state, or damage/armor/weight range, set up an `ExclusiveGroup` of mutually-exclusive keywords — or asks what an existing `_KID.ini` does, whether a given item gets a keyword from it, why a line isn't applying, or to audit or review a mod's KID lines. This is keywords on ITEMS — keywords on NPCs are SPID, items in containers are CID, editing a record's own fields is SkyPatcher. Load before writing or reading any KID line — a misread token silently changes what gets tagged.
Look up the schema of any Skyrim record type — its fields, their types, which are writable, the legal enum values, and the arms a polymorphic field accepts — from the bundled record-schema reference before reading or editing that record type. Use when the user wants to edit, patch, or override a record (ARMO, WEAP, MGEF, NPC_, CELL, …), asks what fields a record type has or what an xEdit signature maps to, whether a field is writable, or what values an enum field allows (legal ActorValue, Aggression, or CastType values), or needs a field's name, type, or cardinality before composing a record change. Load before answering any "what fields does X have" or "can I set Y on Z" question and before composing any record write — the reference is by construction from the game's full record library, so a type that's absent is a real coverage gap to surface, never something to guess.
Author or interpret Open Animation Replacer (OAR) configs — the runtime, condition-driven animation system (config.json / user.json) that supersedes Dynamic Animation Replacer (DAR) and still reads DAR's legacy folders, from the bundled OAR reference. Use when the user wants to write or fix a config.json or user.json, add or edit animation conditions, gate a moveset, idle, dodge, or attack animation by weapon type, keyword, perk, race, or magic effect, set a submod priority, override a mod's conditions without editing it, read or convert a DAR _conditions.txt, or use an OAR addon condition (Math, RaySense, IED, Detection, Dialogue) — or asks why an animation isn't playing, which submod wins, or what a config does. This authors animation CONFIGS — distributing forms to NPCs is SPID, keywords to items is KID, editing record fields is SkyPatcher. Load before writing or reading any OAR config — OAR picks winners by priority, not plugin load order, and a wrong token silently no-ops at load.