achieve

name

achieve

description

Use when operating a long-running autonomous objective as an auditable goal lifecycle: interview prose intent into a reviewable goal artifact under charness-artifacts/goals/, keep slice progress and verification visible during the run, and prove the goal with honest non-claims at the end. Coordinates ideation/spec/impl/quality/issue/critique/retro around one goal artifact instead of replacing them, and stays a goal operator rather than a task execution engine.

Achieve

Use this when the user wants to prepare, strengthen, run, or audit a long-running autonomous objective — including prose like $achieve <outcome> or a request for a reviewable /goal @file activation artifact.

achieve turns prose intent into one auditable goal artifact, coordinates the existing workflow skills around it, and keeps progress, proof, and non-claims visible. It does not execute a separate run loop.

Bootstrap

Resolve $SKILL_DIR per ../../shared/references/bootstrap-resolution.md. Every invocation starts here.

# 1. current repo and workflow context
sed -n '1,200p' docs/handoff.md 2>/dev/null || true
git status --short --branch
git log --oneline -10

# 2. any active goal already on disk
ls charness-artifacts/goals/ 2>/dev/null || true

# 3. inspect or scaffold the goal artifact (helpers preserve manual content)
python3 "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/check_goal_artifact.py" --repo-root . --slug <slug> --date <yyyy-mm-dd>
python3 "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/upsert_goal.py" --repo-root . --slug <slug> --title "<title>"

If a goal artifact for this work already exists, read it first and continue its lifecycle instead of starting a new one.

Workflow

achieve runs one goal as three phases. See references/lifecycle.md and references/goal-artifact.md for the full contract.

1. Before — shape and save.
   • interview from prose with a few high-leverage questions; if the request is ambiguous between artifact-only and implementation-continuation paths, ask at least one question before saving, or state the assumed interpretation when a strong default settles it
   • establish outcome, non-goals, boundaries, user acceptance, verification plan, proof cost, test-duplication pressure, slice sequence, critique plan, stop conditions, and reporting expectations
   • replace all To be filled by the achieve Before-phase placeholders; any leftover marker leaves the goal unshaped to --pursue-ready
   • for consequential defaults in Non-Goals, Boundaries, verification, interview decisions, or critique findings (live/prod proof, issue close/split, broad scope, irreversible side effects, or proof-level non-claims), add a non-empty Discuss before activation: summary and resolve or explicitly ask before reporting the goal ready or offering activation; --pursue-ready fails on missing/unresolved activation discussion, and a present summary is not proof of resolution
   • save with upsert_goal.py at status draft
   • close with Goal file:, exact Activation: line, and the inert-until-/goal status; do not execute slices yourself
2. During — slice and record.
   • activation (/goal) is pure pursue: check check_goal_artifact.py --pursue-ready --goal-path <artifact> and fail fast to the Before-phase (/achieve @...) if unshaped, missing a required activation-discussion summary, or carrying unresolved consequential activation discussion
   • treat the active goal artifact as the slice memory surface, not handoff
   • keep ## Active Operating Frame current as the short control panel; let ## Slice Log remain the archive
   • before a substantial slice, state its objective and expected evidence
   • for fresh-eye slice critique, hand the reviewer a bounded slice packet: intent, changed files and owning/generated surfaces, expected invariants, tests/proof, non-claims, out-of-scope lines, and questions
   • append slice reports with append_slice_log.py; when tests are added or expanded, include a cheap duplicate-pressure sample via --test-pressure
   • use cheap deterministic checks at commit boundaries; use higher-cost proof at slice boundaries; reserve broad/live proof for bundle boundaries or the final stage
   • keep critique slice-level, not commit-level
   • file off-goal findings through issue; record only the reference and reason in the artifact
   • on an unresolvable blocker, flip status to blocked, record the blocker and attempted paths, and ask the user
3. After — prove and reflect.
   • run the final quality gate or documented substitute; if a broad duplicate/pressure gate fails, classify new-slice-local versus accumulated suite debt and name the smallest structural cleanup
   • record high-confidence / live proof, or state explicitly that it was not run
   • write final self-verification, residual risks, non-claims, and user verification instructions
   • run retro for the automatic efficiency review
   • for a long goal with host timing data, record the goal window with record_metric_window.py so the probe is goal-scoped, then render the standardized provider-safe metrics block with probe_host_logs.py --goal-path <artifact> --format markdown instead of hand-assembling it (see references/goal-artifact.md)
   • when host evidence exists, summarize measured efficiency signals and proxy pressure separately: tokens/time, compactions, tool-call counts, repeated VCS/check commands, polling, and subagent count. Cached input alone is not waste. Record broad-gate proof as a result attestation, never a re-embedded provider CLI command string.
   • disposition every surfaced improvement in Auto-Retro: either applied: <what> (a gate, hook, validator, test, or code change committed this run) or issue #N; prose-only memory is invalid. If there is nothing actionable, record one per-goal Retro dispositions: none — <reason> line.
   • when a disposition routes an improvement to issue #N, the proposed issue carries the generalized Structural pattern:+Triggering instance(s): and a resolved Destination:, split per ../../shared/references/retro-issue-destination-split.md.
   • disposition gate, for goals created after the rule landed: a deterministic block blank Auto-Retro when cited retro lists improvements and require a bound Disposition review: line (or host-blocked-subagent skip). This is presence/binding-only, never a content classifier; pre-rule goals are grandfathered.
   • coordination floors (gather + release + issue closeout), for goals created after the rules landed: an external source in ## Context Sources needs a Gather: step (or n/a — <reason>); a touched release surface needs a Release: step; tracked issue sources or closeout work need an Issue closeout: step. Presence-only, grandfathered.
   • run check_goal_artifact.py, then flip status to complete
   • if the artifact names current HEAD/HEAD is with an immutable SHA, make the SHA match the live git rev-parse HEAD result or mark it historical
   • before any host-level goal completion/status tool call, prove the checked-in goal artifact is already Status: complete and passes check_goal_artifact.py; never let a host green signal substitute for the artifact evidence floor

Coordination

achieve reuses existing skills and must keep each useful standalone. See references/coordination.md for the per-skill roles and the handoff boundary.

• ideation/spec upstream; impl for slices; debug before bug fixes; quality for verification cadence; issue for off-goal findings and staging the originating tracked issue's closeout; critique for plan/slice/final review; retro for the after-action review. achieve itself does not push.
• Do not absorb their work or add achieve-only branches to them.

Output Shape

• a goal artifact under charness-artifacts/goals/<yyyy-mm-dd-slug>.md with a top-level ## Active Operating Frame plus the required audit sections (Goal, Non-Goals, Boundaries, User Acceptance, Agent Verification Plan, Slice Plan, Slice Log, Context Sources, Interview Decisions, Plan Critique Findings, Off-Goal Findings, Final Verification, User Verification Instructions, Auto-Retro)
• Status is one of draft / active / blocked / complete
• an explicit /goal @... activation line
• at completion, a final report that separates self-verification, user verification, residual risk, and non-claims
• at completion, an explicit disposition for each surfaced improvement (applied: <what> or issue #N) — never prose-only memory
• a ## Coordination Cues section that defers phase routing to find-skills (never an inline phase→skill map) and, at completion, a Gather: / Release: / Issue closeout: step (or an n/a — <reason> opt-out) whenever the matching closeout floor is triggered

Guardrails

• Do not make achieve a generic task runner; it is a goal operator, and it does not implement a new execution engine.
• Do not start executing the goal before the user activates it.
• Do not shape a goal at /goal activation; /goal pursues only and fail-fasts on an unshaped goal, routing the operator to /achieve.
• Do not require every short prompt to become a goal.
• Do not run broad quality gates after every small commit.
• Do not make handoff the normal running scratchpad while a goal is active.
• Do not treat the historical slice log as the normal active prompt surface; refresh the active operating frame and archive completed detail below it.
• Do not claim provider, live, or release proof when only local deterministic checks ran; name skipped proof levels in the final report.
• Do not fabricate token, time, or tool-call metrics the host log does not expose.
• Do not treat cached input volume alone as waste.
• Do not collapse retro into a path reference; include its substantive findings inline and persist the file (see references/lifecycle.md).
• Do not leave surfaced improvements as prose-only retro memory; disposition each one, or record the falsifiable per-goal none line.
• Do not tighten the deterministic disposition floor into a content classifier; it proves a review ran, and the reviewer/human judges substance.
• Do not bake a phase→skill map into ## Coordination Cues; defer routing to find-skills and record only the gather / release presence floors or explicit n/a — <reason> opt-outs.

References

• references/lifecycle.md
• references/goal-artifact.md
• references/coordination.md
• ../../shared/references/bootstrap-resolution.md