| name | aoa-session-donor-harvest |
| description | Turn a reviewed session artifact into a bounded HARVEST_PACKET, route each reusable unit to the right AoA owner layer, and hand off to the next honest post-session skill when needed. Use when the source is a reviewed session transcript, compaction note, or recap and the real question is what should survive this session rather than merely what happened. Do not use for active or unreviewed sessions, raw session capture or indexing work, or when the only remaining object is already one repeated quest unit that just needs `aoa-quest-harvest` for the final promotion verdict. |
| license | Apache-2.0 |
| compatibility | Designed for Codex or similar coding agents with repository file access and an interactive shell. Network access is optional and only needed when repository validation or referenced workflows require it. |
| metadata | {"aoa_scope":"core","aoa_status":"evaluated","aoa_invocation_mode":"explicit-only","aoa_source_skill_path":"skills/core/session-growth/aoa-session-donor-harvest/SKILL.md","aoa_source_repo":"8Dionysus/aoa-skills","aoa_technique_dependencies":"AOA-T-0075,AOA-T-0076,AOA-T-0077","aoa_portable_profile":"codex-facing-wave-3"} |
aoa-session-donor-harvest
Intent
Use this skill to metabolize a reviewed session artifact into a bounded
HARVEST_PACKET that names reusable units, routes each one to the right AoA
owner layer, and drafts the next honest artifact without forcing promotion.
Trigger boundary
Use this skill when:
- a session transcript, compaction note, review packet, or bounded recap exists and must be distilled into reusable donor units
- the work is post-session and reviewable rather than live execution
- candidate outputs may belong in technique canon,
aoa-skills, aoa-playbooks, aoa-evals, aoa-memo, aoa-agents, or a hold/quest lane
- a repeated manual route may also need an explicit automation-readiness seam instead of staying vague donor residue
- the session may also have produced decision forks, diagnosis clues, repair candidates, progression evidence, or quest residue that should be made explicit rather than buried in recap prose
- checkpoint notes, closeout handoffs, or other lower-authority hints need to
be accepted, rejected, or carried without becoming candidates on their own
- the question is not merely "what happened?" but "what reusable object, if any, emerged here?"
Do not use this skill when:
- the session is still active or unreviewed
- the task is raw session capture, transcript export, or local indexing; those are history techniques, not this skill
- the result is clearly one bounded repeated quest unit that only needs the narrower final promotion verdict from
aoa-quest-harvest
- the material is only a progress log, emotional recap, or theme cloud with no bounded reusable unit
- the intended first destination is
aoa-routing or aoa-kag; those are derivative layers and should not receive source-owned meaning first
Inputs
- reviewed session artifact
- session goal and closure state
- candidate repeat signals or reuse signals
- touched repos or AoA layers
- optional checkpoint
cluster_ref values, closeout-handoff hints, or other
pre-harvest focus hints
- current-session evidence boundary, especially when hints came from a ledger
that may also contain stale or neighboring-session residue
- explicit uncertainty and boundary risks
- desired output posture: classify-only, draft-stub, or patch-ready proposal
Outputs
- one bounded
HARVEST_PACKET
- one reviewed intake note that says which checkpoint or handoff hints were
accepted, rejected, or carried as unresolved focus only
- named candidates, each with:
- candidate ref minted only after reviewed harvest
- source cluster ref when the reviewed input carried one
- reusable unit name
- unit kind: pattern, mechanic, utility, law, proof, recall, or route
- owner shape: technique, skill, playbook, eval, memo, agent, or hold
- owner hypothesis and owner repo recommendation
- one chosen next artifact
- one rejected nearest-wrong target
- status posture plus any supersedes, merged-into, or drop-reason carry
- evidence anchors from the session artifact
- one short list of items to defer, drop, or keep as quest residue
- one optional
automation_candidate extract when a repeated manual route is
stable enough to deserve explicit automation-readiness classification
- one optional handoff list to
aoa-automation-opportunity-scan,
aoa-session-route-forks,
aoa-session-self-diagnose, aoa-session-self-repair,
aoa-session-progression-lift, or aoa-quest-harvest
- one
HARVEST_PACKET_RECEIPT using references/stats-event-envelope.md and
references/harvest-packet-receipt-schema.yaml
- one
CORE_SKILL_APPLICATION_RECEIPT using
references/core-skill-application-receipt-schema.yaml
Procedure
- start from a reviewed session artifact rather than transient chat memory
- inventory any checkpoint, closeout-handoff, or ledger hints as focus inputs;
mark each hint as accepted, rejected, stale, cross-session, contaminated, or
unresolved before it can influence a candidate
- accept a hint only when the reviewed artifact or receipt evidence shows the
same reusable unit; never mint
candidate_ref from a hint alone
- extract candidate reusable units, not topics; prefer explicit moves, laws, checklists, structures, routes, or proof patterns
- split merged candidates until each unit has one honest owner shape
- classify each kept candidate twice:
- by reuse kind: pattern, mechanic, utility, law, proof, recall, or route
- by owner shape: technique, skill, playbook, eval, memo, agent, or hold
- mint
candidate_ref only after the reviewed unit is bounded and the owner
hypothesis plus nearest-wrong target are explicit
- mark
automation_candidate only when a repeated manual route is stable
enough to name the current inputs, outputs, and risk posture, but the
surviving question is still automation readiness rather than owner canon
- reject theme-only repetition, aesthetic resonance, and broad "good idea" residue unless a bounded reusable unit exists
- route reusable practice meaning to technique canon first
- route bounded executable leaf workflows to
aoa-skills
- route multi-step recurring scenario methods to
aoa-playbooks
- route rubrics, verdict postures, and proof surfaces to
aoa-evals
- route recall, writeback, recurrence, and memory-support patterns to
aoa-memo
- route role law, orchestrator class law, handoff law, and actor-boundary rules to
aoa-agents
- keep
aoa-routing and aoa-kag out of first-authoring unless the source-owned object already exists elsewhere and the session only discovered a derivative bridge update
- preserve quest residue without forcing promotion when the reviewed session
is still mixed, early, or weakly repeated
- hand off to
aoa-automation-opportunity-scan when the main surviving
question is whether a repeated manual route is honestly automation-ready
- hand off to
aoa-session-route-forks when the main post-session need is
explicit next-route choice rather than donor extraction itself
- hand off to
aoa-session-self-diagnose when the dominant surviving object
is drift, contradiction, proof gap, or ownership confusion
- hand off to
aoa-session-progression-lift when the main surviving object is
evidence-backed progression reflection rather than owner placement
- when the candidate is a repeated reviewed quest unit and the remaining
ambiguity is specifically the final promotion target among quest, skill,
playbook, agent, eval, or memo, hand off to
aoa-quest-harvest
- draft the smallest next artifact for each accepted candidate, such as
TECHNIQUE.md, SKILL.md, PLAYBOOK.md, EVAL.md, memory object seed,
or agent/orchestrator surface note
- keep
cluster_ref, owner_hypothesis, owner_shape,
nearest_wrong_target, status_posture, evidence_refs, supersedes,
merged_into, and drop_reason on each accepted candidate when that carry
exists or becomes explicit during reviewed harvest
- emit one
HARVEST_PACKET_RECEIPT when the packet is complete, using the
shared event envelope and a bounded receipt payload instead of duplicating
the full donor packet
- when the finish path is complete, emit one
CORE_SKILL_APPLICATION_RECEIPT that points back to the bounded detail
receipt, keeps application_stage=finish, and stays generic enough to act
as project-core kernel telemetry rather than a second donor packet
- record one clear reason for the chosen owner and one clear reason against
the nearest wrong owner
Contracts
- invocation must remain explicit and post-session
- the skill harvests donor units; it does not treat session history as memory canon or instruction authority
- checkpoint notes, closeout handoffs, and ledgers are focus inputs only until
reviewed evidence confirms or rejects them
- one candidate must map to one primary owner layer
candidate_ref appears only after reviewed donor harvest
usefulness is a reuse signal, not an owner layer by itself
- derivative layers do not become first authoring targets for source-owned meaning
- weak evidence may end in
hold or keep_or_open_quest
- the
HARVEST_PACKET may carry handoff hints, but it does not become hidden
routing authority
automation_candidate is only a detector hint; it is not schedule or
mutation authority
HARVEST_PACKET_RECEIPT stays subordinate to the packet and never replaces
owner-layer or proof meaning
CORE_SKILL_APPLICATION_RECEIPT stays subordinate to the packet and the
detail receipt; it records one finished kernel-skill application and nothing
more
- receipt corrections use
supersedes rather than silent mutation
- drafting a next artifact is allowed; forcing promotion is not
Risks and anti-patterns
- collapsing technique, skill, and playbook into one generic "good reuse" bucket
- mistaking session themes for reusable units
- routing authored meaning into
aoa-routing or aoa-kag first
- turning agent class law into a skill just because an agent repeatedly used a workflow
- promoting memory residue as if it were proof or source meaning
- over-harvesting one session into too many thin objects
- treating a transcript package or session index as the same thing as donor harvest
- minting
candidate_ref from checkpoint or handoff hints that were never
confirmed in the reviewed artifact
- letting stale, cross-session, or diagnostic ledger residue enter the donor
packet as if it belonged to the current reviewed session
- stuffing route-forks, diagnosis, repair, or progression meaning into vague
donor notes instead of naming the next family seam explicitly
- turning donor harvest into a generic automation detector for every recurring
annoyance instead of keeping automation readiness as its own seam
- letting receipt counts masquerade as proof, progression, or routing law
Verification
- confirm the source artifact is reviewed and bounded
- confirm checkpoint, closeout-handoff, or ledger hints were dispositioned as
accepted, rejected, stale, cross-session, contaminated, or unresolved before
any candidate was minted from them
- confirm each kept candidate names one reusable unit rather than a topic
- confirm each accepted candidate has one primary owner layer
- confirm the nearest wrong target is rejected explicitly
- confirm
candidate_ref was minted only for reviewed bounded units
- confirm every
candidate_ref is supported by reviewed artifact or receipt
evidence rather than hint presence alone
- confirm any surviving checkpoint
cluster_ref stayed linked when available
- confirm no candidate routes source-owned meaning first into derivative layers
- confirm hold and defer outcomes remain available
- confirm the output names the next artifact rather than only abstract categories
- confirm any family handoff hint is explicit rather than smuggled into the
packet as hidden policy
- confirm any
automation_candidate names the current manual route and still
stops short of automation authority
- confirm any emitted receipt stays append-only, evidence-linked, and smaller
than the packet it summarizes
- confirm any emitted
CORE_SKILL_APPLICATION_RECEIPT points to the matching
detail receipt and does not widen beyond one finished kernel-skill run
Technique traceability
Manifest-backed techniques:
- AOA-T-0075 from
8Dionysus/aoa-techniques at b0f7e094bf81abaf0895a729d504a97f3af91ae8 using path techniques/continuity/donor-harvest/session-donor-harvest/TECHNIQUE.md and sections: Intent, When to use, Inputs, Outputs, Core procedure, Contracts, Validation
- AOA-T-0076 from
8Dionysus/aoa-techniques at b0f7e094bf81abaf0895a729d504a97f3af91ae8 using path techniques/governance/decision-routing/owner-layer-triage/TECHNIQUE.md and sections: Intent, When to use, Outputs, Core procedure, Risks, Validation
- AOA-T-0077 from
8Dionysus/aoa-techniques at b0f7e094bf81abaf0895a729d504a97f3af91ae8 using path techniques/continuity/donor-harvest/harvest-packet-contract/TECHNIQUE.md and sections: Inputs, Outputs, Contracts, Validation
Adaptation points
Project overlays may add:
- local session artifact entrypoints
- local review packet templates
- repo-relative destination paths for drafted artifacts
- local stop conditions for when the result must stay
hold
- local naming rules for donor packs and quest IDs
- local family handoff preferences when automation scan, route-forks,
diagnosis, repair, or progression surfaces exist
- local vocabulary for accepting, rejecting, or carrying checkpoint and
closeout-handoff hints without making them authoring authority
This skill assumes the session artifact already exists. Adjacent history techniques such as session capture, transcript packaging, and local indexing remain separate neighbors rather than being reopened here.