| name | forge |
| description | Reference-grounded prompt-artifact formation. Reads a target reference doc, surfaces the under-determined contract coordinates, and projects a ready-to-use prompt or standing skill recipe. |
Forge: Reference-Grounded Prompt-Artifact Formation
Form a ready-to-use prompt artifact by grounding the user's under-determined intent in an authoritative reference document. This skill does not run the downstream tool, open branches, or create PRs. It surfaces the user's intent coordinates, grounds them against a reference (dynamically fetched, staleness-guarded), and emits one prompt artifact — an initial prompt for a follow-up session or tool, or a standing custom-skill recipe.
This is a projection utility, not a runtime executor and not a new epistemic protocol. Forge introduces no new deficit. It realizes a known composite — surface under-determined intent coordinates (reverse-induction, the /elicit move) ∘ ground them against a canonical external reference (the /inquire canonical-external move) → thin projection. The output is a prompt artifact the user carries into the next session or tool.
Core Contract
/forge owns reference-grounded prompt-artifact formation:
ReferenceIntake
-> ResolvedIntentIR (core: reverse-induce under-determined coordinates)
-> GroundedReference (core: canonical-external snapshot + staleness guard)
-> VendorPromptDraft (adapter: project IR through the reference schema)
-> PromptArtifact (adapter: a prompt-family payload for a follow-up session/tool, or a standing custom-skill recipe)
The core is vendor-agnostic and stops at ResolvedIntentIR plus the validated GroundedReference. The adapter owns the projection into a vendor-native artifact form. The core never learns vendor specifics; the adapter never re-derives intent.
Core / Seam / Adapter
- Core (vendor-agnostic): reverse-induce the user's under-determined intent into
ResolvedIntentIR; extract the adapter-derived required slots (ContractElements) the reference's schema requires; partition slots into relay vs constitution; own the staleness policy, provenance, and generic validation.
- Vendor Adapter Contract (the seam): the narrow, parameterized interface every adapter satisfies. New references plug in by adding an adapter section — accumulated per real use, never built top-down.
- Adapters (concrete instances):
Higgsfield, gpt-image, codex-goals, and claude-session ship now. Each owns reference discovery/fetch, the reference's prompt schema, the projection rendering, and unsupported-field degradation.
Vendor Adapter Contract (seam)
Each adapter provides, against a fixed contract:
| Seam operation | Meaning |
|---|
capabilities | The reference's model/target constraints (resolution, duration, required fields, supported modalities). |
fetch_guide_snapshot | Acquire the reference text via canonical-external retrieval — dynamic web fetch by default, or a local canonical mirror (a universally-deployed agent skill, an internal docs mirror, etc.) when the adapter binds to one. Produce a GuideSnapshot with staleness metadata. |
derive_prompt_schema | From the snapshot, derive the reference's prompt schema (the slots the artifact must fill). |
project | Render ResolvedIntentIR through the schema into a VendorPromptDraft (an adapter may first specialize it into a reference-specific IR such as CreativePromptIR). |
validate | Check the draft against capabilities; surface degraded or unsupported fields. |
Narrowest seam contract: ResolvedIntentIR × GuideSnapshot -> VendorPromptDraft, carrying provenance and freshness. The core does not know "Seedance wants shot count first" or "a Goal needs a blocked-stop clause"; that lives in adapters.
Types
| Type | Meaning |
|---|
ReferenceTarget | The authoritative document to ground against: a vendor model prompt guide, the Codex Goals spec, or another reference the active adapter recognizes. |
ContractElements | The reference-required slots forge extracts so the reference can be applied. The concrete slot set is adapter-derived from the reference's schema, not fixed by the core. |
ResolvedIntentIR | The core's vendor-agnostic resolved-intent IR: the user's intent plus the resolved coordinates the reference's required slots need, modality-tagged but not media-specific. Core output stops here; an adapter may require a more specific specialization. |
CreativePromptIR | An adapter-required specialization of ResolvedIntentIR for creative-media references (the Higgsfield-class adapter requires it): the modality-aware IR `{ intent{goal,audience?,mood?}, modality(image |
GuideSnapshot | The fetched reference text plus staleness metadata: `{ url, retrieved_at, visible_updated_at |
RelaySlot | A contract slot determined by the reference plus the user's stated intent. Forge auto-fills it with a cited basis. |
ConstitutionSlot | A contract slot requiring the user's judgment. Forge fills it with a proposed default and explicitly flags it for recognition. |
VendorPromptDraft | The adapter's projection of the IR through the reference schema, with provenance, freshness, a stale-guide flag when the staleness guard did not pass, a model-fallback flag when no per-model page exists for the resolved model (the draft is built on the general layer only), a transport-unsafe flag when the projected payload carries shell-active tokens or secret-substitution patterns hazardous across a shell-carrier handoff, and a reasoning-echo-unsafe flag (adapter-raised) when the payload or the target's inherited output-style carries an extraction-shaped instruction — one whose object is the model's own internal reasoning (reproduce / transcribe / explain it as response text), not the domain material's evidence and causality — against a model whose page flags that as refusal-triggering. |
PromptArtifact | The endpoint artifact: a prompt-family payload — an initial prompt for a follow-up session or tool, or a standing custom-skill recipe. Its form is adapter-determined (a Higgsfield video prompt; a Codex string). |
Phase 0: Bind Reference and Intent
Bind two inputs:
ReferenceTarget — an explicit reference (URL, vendor+model, "the Codex Goals doc"), or the reference the active adapter defaults to.- The user's intent utterance — the latent, under-determined creative or task intent.
Adapter selection (relay-first): Select the adapter by relay when the reference or the user's request names or determines it — e.g., "/forge higgsfield: " or a Higgsfield model guide → higgsfield; "draft a /goal …" or the Codex Goals spec → codex-goals. Auto-include it; do not gate. Only when the adapter is genuinely ambiguous or unrecoverable, present the Adapter Index as a structured recognition choice (an AskUserQuestion over the indexed adapters) — never an unconditional prompt, never free-text, and never when relay determines the adapter. Do not guess the reference.
After the adapter is selected, Read adapters/<selected>.md. The full adapter contract is progressively disclosed — loaded only on selection, not before.
Phase 1: Resolve Intent (Core — Reverse-Induction)
Reverse-induce the under-determined intent into ResolvedIntentIR. Surface only the coordinates the reference will require; do not interrogate coordinates the reference and stated intent already determine.
Use inline lightweight reverse-induction. When the intent carries heavy aporia (multi-axis, no stable coordinate basis), escalate to /elicit rather than forcing a thin IR, then resume Phase 2 with the resolved endpoint.
Phase 2: Ground the Reference (Core — Canonical-External + Staleness)
Call the adapter's fetch_guide_snapshot: acquire the reference via canonical-external retrieval — dynamic web fetch by default, or a local canonical mirror when the adapter binds to one (a universally-deployed agent skill, an internal docs mirror, etc.). Default discovery is hybrid — a curated per-reference seed, resolved at runtime, accepted only if the staleness guard passes.
Staleness guard: record { url, retrieved_at, visible_updated_at|version, content_hash, canonicality_score } and cross-check at least one of: a changelog/version page, a visible page date, an API model/version list, or a canonical docs index. For local canonical mirrors, the mirror file's mtime serves as visible_updated_at and a content hash (when applicable) as content_hash; cross-check is the source's own version field, or — if absent — the mtime against a known-good threshold. If stale or unverified, fall back to the curated seed and mark the draft stale-guide.
Phase 3: Extract Contract and Partition Slots (Core)
Derive the reference's prompt schema and extract the adapter-derived required slots (ContractElements). Partition every slot:
RelaySlot — determined by reference plus stated intent → fill with a cited basis.ConstitutionSlot — requires the user's judgment → fill with a proposed default, explicitly flagged.
Core output stops here at ResolvedIntentIR plus the partitioned slots and the validated GroundedReference.
Phase 4: Project and Present (Adapter + Constitution)
The adapter projects the IR through the reference schema into a VendorPromptDraft, then validate checks it against capabilities.
Present a ready-to-use draft with every contract slot filled. Relay slots show their cited basis; constitution slots show the proposed default with an explicit recognition flag. Then surface the artifact as the PromptArtifact for the follow-up session/tool, with provenance, freshness, and any stale-guide, model-fallback, transport-unsafe, or reasoning-echo-unsafe flag.
Emit the PromptArtifact transport-safely (Rule 12): the payload is a literal opaque artifact, so display it verbatim (fenced) for on-screen reading, recommend file-based handoff over inline shell args for injection, and surface any transport-unsafe flag validate raised.
Surface — present the filled draft as context (slots, bases, flags) before the gate; the gate carries only:
- Accept — use this prompt artifact as-is in the follow-up session/tool.
- Adjust flagged slots — change one or more constitution slots, then re-project.
- Regenerate — re-fetch the reference or re-resolve intent and rebuild.
Default is the filled draft, not a bare question list.
Adapter Index
Adapter bodies are progressively disclosed: this index is always loaded; each adapter's full contract lives in adapters/<name>.md and is Read only after the adapter is selected (Phase 0).
| Adapter | Reference | PromptArtifact form |
|---|
higgsfield | Higgsfield video model prompt guide (video-only; image generation denied) | a Higgsfield video prompt for a follow-up session |
gpt-image | Codex imagegen skill at $CODEX_HOME/skills/.system/imagegen/ (image-only; targets gpt-image-2; web cookbook fallback) | a gpt-image-2 prompt block (using the source's shared schema) plus parameter envelope |
codex-goals | OpenAI Codex Goals specification | a strong /goal … string for a follow-up Codex session |
claude-session | Claude prompting best-practices guide (model-axis: prompting-claude-{model}; first-party, reflexive) | a model-tailored handoff initial-prompt for a follow-up Claude session (/remote-spawn worktree or remote-control) |
Each adapter file satisfies the Vendor Adapter Contract (capabilities / fetch_guide_snapshot / derive_prompt_schema / project / validate). New references plug in by adding an adapters/<name>.md file as accumulated prior — see Deferred Colimit; do not pre-build a registration framework.
Rules
- No new deficit (Architectural — role boundary): forge is a projection utility, not a protocol. It introduces no deficit→resolution morphism. It composes the
/elicit and /inquire canonical-external moves and projects; it does not name a new epistemic deficit.
- Core stops at IR (Architectural — boundary invariant): core output is
ResolvedIntentIR plus the validated grounded reference. The artifact form is adapter-determined and must not be promoted to a core output type. Promoting a completion-contract form into the core re-imports the routable/provenance boundary that a separate research issue owns; keep contract-ness in the adapter.
- Prompt-artifact endpoint (Architectural — handoff specificity): every adapter's projection endpoint is a
PromptArtifact — a prompt-family payload (an initial prompt for a follow-up session or tool, or a standing custom-skill recipe). This is a unifying role, not a shared output type; the real per-adapter forms remain those in the Adapter Index "PromptArtifact form" column.
- Reference grounding required (Axiom anchor — Detection with Authority): every projection grounds against a fetched reference with cited provenance. A projection without a grounded, provenance-tagged reference is not a forge output.
- Recognition over Recall (Axiom anchor — Recognition over Recall): forge emits a filled draft, not a blank question list. Relay slots are auto-filled with cited basis; constitution slots carry a proposed default explicitly flagged so the user recognizes and adjusts rather than recalls from blank.
- Surfacing over Deciding (Derived — Surfacing over Deciding): constitution slots are surfaced with their proposed defaults flagged; forge does not silently finalize a slot that requires the user's judgment. A blind full draft that hides which slots were guessed is an anti-pattern.
- Staleness guard (Architectural — provenance continuity): reference evidence is staleness-guarded and tagged
web:{url} or file:{path} depending on the canonical-source substrate. If staleness cannot be verified, fall back to the curated seed and mark the draft stale-guide; never present a stale reference silently.
- Adapter accumulation, not top-down (Architectural — empirical restraint): adapters are added per real use as accumulated prior. The Adapter Index above is the authoritative list of currently-shipped adapters; do not build a multi-reference framework ahead of use.
- Formation, not execution (Architectural — role boundary):
/forge does not run the downstream tool, create branches, or open PRs. It emits the prompt artifact and stops.
Deferred Colimit (do not extract yet)
The cross-adapter abstraction — "reference-grounded prompt-artifact formation" generalized over reference classes — is a deliberately deferred colimit. Its structure is a prescriptive core plus per-instance realizations plus accumulated prior. It is not extracted or named now.
Trigger to extract the meta-pattern: a built first-reference instance plus accumulated prior from real use of a second instance, per the epistemic cost asymmetry (an unused abstraction costs more than a missing one) and instance-first methodology. Naming it before that is the over-generalization the methodology refuses.
Candidate adapters (not yet realized — list only, do not build ahead of use):
cookbook-conformer — ground intent against a cookbook/recipe reference.best-practices-conformer — ground intent against a best-practices document.- additional vendor model-guide adapters as real use accumulates.
Boundary Note
/forge forms a prompt artifact and stops. It reads a reference and surfaces intent; it does not execute the tool, run the Goal, generate the media, or open branches/PRs. The reference-fetch move mirrors the /inquire canonical-external channel but forge owns the projection.
Operational checklist (per cycle)
