| name | pair-capability-classify |
| description | Builds the classification matrix by applying the quality model (KB default + `tech/risk-matrix.md` adoption delta) — from the story context in refinement, from the code/diff in review (confirm-or-raise, never lower). Emits chromatic tags only when the adoption declares the matrix→tag projection. Composed by /pair-process-refine-story (refinement context) and /pair-process-review (review context); invoke directly to classify a card or PR on demand. |
| version | 0.1.0 |
| author | Foomakers |
/pair-capability-classify — Objective Classification
Compile the classification matrix for a card or PR by applying the quality model — never by inventing criteria. The model is the single source of rules (§3 risk dimensions, §3.2 tier = max, §5 tag projection); this skill is the Layer-2 skill that runs those rules on demand and produces the artifact (quality-model §1). Downstream consumers (gate, /pair-process-review, /pair-next, automation) read the resulting matrix and tags without owning any criteria (D18).
Two invocation contexts, one model:
- refinement — evidence is the story context (declared/estimated scope, touched subdomains, cross-context integrations). Shift-left (R1.3): the matrix exists before code does.
- review — evidence is the code/diff (observed footprint,
/pair-capability-assess-security verdict, /assess-coupling verdict). The review value is a floor: it confirms or raises the refinement tier, and never lowers it (quality-model §3.2, D17).
Arguments
| Argument | Required | Description |
|---|
$context | No | refinement — classify from the story context. review — classify from the diff. Auto-detected: called by /pair-process-refine-story → refinement; by /pair-process-review → review; a PR/diff in context → review; otherwise → refinement. |
$target | No | The card/PR to classify (story ID or PR number). Default: the item in context. |
$override | No | An explicit tier or dimension override passed by a human (resolution cascade Argument layer, quality-model §Resolution order). Raises only — never lowers a review value below the model result. |
Prerequisite: the quality model
The rules this skill applies live entirely in the quality model (#221) plus its optional adoption delta tech/risk-matrix.md (§6). This skill contains no classification criteria of its own — it is grep-verifiably a model-applier, not a model-owner.
No quality model doc installed ⇒ HALT with a pointer to the #221 prerequisite: classify cannot apply rules that are not present. This is the one hard stop; every other absence degrades gracefully to a KB default (D21).
Resolution order
Every rule resolves through the quality model's cascade — Argument ($override) > Adoption (tech/risk-matrix.md) > KB default (quality-model.md). A malformed adoption file is treated as absent: warn and fall back to KB defaults entirely, including no tag emission (quality-model §6, D21).
Algorithm
Step 0: Detect Context
- Check: Is
$context provided?
- Skip: If provided, use it. Proceed to Step 1.
- Act: Auto-detect — invoked by
/pair-process-refine-story → refinement; by /pair-process-review, or with a PR/diff in context → review; otherwise → refinement.
- Verify: Context is set to exactly one of
refinement | review.
Step 1: Load the Model
- Act: Read quality-model.md. If absent → HALT (pointer to #221).
- Act: Read
tech/risk-matrix.md if present — its up-to-three independent sections (## Tag Projection, ## Criticality Table, ## Overrides, quality-model §6); the presence of one never implies the others. Absent or malformed ⇒ KB defaults apply completely (D21).
- Verify: The effective rule set is assembled — KB defaults, plus whichever adoption sections parsed cleanly. Adoption absence is logged as "KB defaults" in the output, not treated as a gap.
Step 2: Gather Evidence
Per $context, collect the source for each dimension (quality-model §3.1, "Source" column):
- refinement — from the story body: declared scope (change/diff-risk proxy), the subdomain classification of what it touches (business impact), touched-path heuristics (security relevance), and — if
subdomain//boundedcontext/ artifacts exist — the volatility of touched subdomains plus the cross-context integrations the story introduces (coupling balance).
- review — from the diff: observed footprint (change/diff risk), the
/pair-capability-assess-security review verdict (security relevance, quality-model §3.1), and the /assess-coupling verdict on the diff (coupling balance). An unreadable diff (huge/binary) falls back to file-path/service-level evidence and flags low confidence in the <details>.
Coupling sources absent (no subdomain/bounded-context artifacts in refinement, /assess-coupling not installed in review) ⇒ the coupling dimension is reported not assessed, excluded from the tier max, and never blocks (quality-model §3.1, D21).
Step 3: Compile the Matrix
- Act: Resolve each of the five dimensions (Service/domain criticality, Change/diff risk, Business impact, Security relevance, Coupling balance) to
green/yellow/red per quality-model §3.1, applying the resolution cascade (Step 1's effective rule set) to each — e.g. a service listed High in the Criticality Table overrides the Medium default (AC5); a service not listed in an existing table resolves to conservative High.
- Act: Risk tier = max(assessed dimensions) (quality-model §3.2), projected as
risk:green|yellow|red. Compute the cost class independently as the highest detected signal (quality-model §3.3, cost:green|yellow|orange|red) — always written to the body, never part of the risk max.
- Act (review only, never-lower): read the refinement-time tier from the story body. The review tier is
max(review-computed, refinement-tier) per dimension and overall — the review pass may raise a dimension (e.g. the diff reveals a schema migration ⇒ risk:red) but never lowers a value the story's refinement already set (quality-model §3.2, D17). A $override may raise further; it never lowers below the model result.
- Verify: Every dimension is
green/yellow/red/not assessed; the tier equals the max of the assessed dimensions; in review, no dimension is below its refinement value. Determinism: the same card/PR under the same model + adoption yields an identical matrix and tier on every run (AC4).
Step 4: Write the Matrix to the Body (always)
- Act: Render the matrix as 1 line +
<details> (D22 reading budget — never an inline table) and write it into the card/PR body's classification section. This write happens regardless of tag projection — §3.2/§3.3 body output never depends on it.
- Verify: The body carries a 1-line verdict (
risk:<tier>, plus cost:<class> and any not-assessed note) and a collapsed <details> with the per-dimension breakdown and confidence.
Step 5: Tag Projection (adoption-gated)
Tag emission is declared, not implicit (quality-model §5) — the matrix in Step 4 stands whether or not any tag is emitted.
-
Check: Does tech/risk-matrix.md have a ## Tag Projection section?
-
Skip: If yes, use it exactly as written — apply the chromatic tag for each Active parameter (risk:green|yellow|red; cost:green|yellow|orange|red only if cost is listed; a renamed label per §5 keeps the same color values) — and never propose again. Active: none is a durable opt-out: emit no tags, do not ask.
-
Act: If no ## Tag Projection section, propose only the risk default (propose-then-write-if-confirmed, the pattern /pair-capability-verify-quality uses for its first-run Custom Gate Registry):
No Tag Projection declared yet. Activate risk:green|yellow|red on stories and PRs? (recommended — other model parameters can be exposed as tags later, if you decide you want them)
- Yes, activate
risk (writes the declaration)
- No, don't tag anything (records the opt-out so this isn't asked again)
On yes, write the ## Tag Projection → Active: risk section into tech/risk-matrix.md; on no, write Active: none. This registry write is classify's own (the §5 precedent — the same self-write /pair-capability-verify-quality performs for its gate registry), not adoption decision content, so it does not route through /pair-capability-record-decision.
-
Act: Apply the resolved tags to the card/PR. classify output wins for classification tags (risk:*, cost:*, …); foreign/manual tags are left untouched. PM tool lacks label-API access ⇒ the matrix stays in the body (Step 4), the tagging failure is reported, non-blocking (AC edge case).
-
Verify: Either the declared tags are applied, or the proposal was answered and recorded (no re-prompt next run), or the opt-out is honored — and the body matrix from Step 4 exists in every case.
Output Format
CLASSIFY ([refinement | review]):
├── Target: [#story | #PR]
├── Tier: risk:[green | yellow | red] [(raised from refinement risk:yellow) — review only]
├── Cost: cost:[green | yellow | orange | red]
├── Model: [KB defaults | + Criticality Table | + Overrides | + Tag Projection]
├── Tags: [applied: risk:red | proposed (awaiting answer) | opted out (Active: none) | tagging failed — non-blocking]
└── Body: matrix written (1 line + <details>, D22)
<details>
<summary>Matrix — per dimension</summary>
| Dimension | Tier | Source | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Service/domain criticality | [g/y/r] | [Criticality Table | KB default] | |
| Change/diff risk | [g/y/r] | [story scope | diff footprint] | |
| Business impact | [g/y/r] | [subdomain class] | |
| Security relevance | [g/y/r] | [path heuristic | assess-security verdict] | |
| Coupling balance | [g/y/r | not assessed] | [subdomain volatility + integrations | assess-coupling verdict | absent] | |
Confidence: [high | low — unreadable diff, path/service-level fallback]
</details>
Worked Examples
Hand-traced fixtures that pin the two behavioural invariants — determinism (AC4) and never-lower (D17) — to concrete matrices. Each example lists every dimension value and the resulting tier so the rule (risk tier = the max of the assessed dimensions, floored by the refinement pass in review) is auditable, not merely asserted. These fixtures are conformance-checked (src/conformance/classify.test.ts): each must carry all five dimensions and a tier that follows the max-rule — and, in review, the refinement floor.
Legend — dimension values are green | yellow | red | not assessed; not assessed is excluded from the max (D21). Tier is risk:<green|yellow|red>.
Worked Example 1 — Determinism (refinement)
Same story context classified on two independent runs yields an identical matrix (AC4). Story context: an internal supporting-subdomain UI tweak — reposition the settings icon; no data-model change, no security-relevant paths, no cross-context integration, no DDD artifacts present.
| Run | Service/domain criticality | Change/diff risk | Business impact | Security relevance | Coupling balance | Tier |
|---|
| A | green | green | green | green | not assessed | risk:green |
| B | green | green | green | green | not assessed | risk:green |
Run A and Run B are byte-identical — no randomness, no time-dependence. Tier = max(green, green, green, green) = risk:green on both runs.
Worked Example 2 — Never-lower, benign diff (review)
The story was refined at risk:yellow (Change/diff risk yellow — a moderate declared scope). The review diff is benign: a docs paragraph and a user-facing copy string, no logic, no schema, no security paths. The review-computed dimensions are all green, but the refinement floor holds the tier at yellow — the review confirms, it never lowers (D17).
| Pass | Service/domain criticality | Change/diff risk | Business impact | Security relevance | Coupling balance | Tier |
|---|
| refinement | green | yellow | green | green | not assessed | risk:yellow |
| review | green | green | green | green | not assessed | risk:yellow |
Review raw max = green, but max(review, refinement-floor) = max(green, yellow) = risk:yellow. The tier stays yellow; nothing is lowered.
Worked Example 3 — Never-lower, risky diff raises (review)
Same refinement start (risk:yellow), but the review diff reveals a database schema migration plus a change to an authentication path. Change/diff risk rises to red and Security relevance rises to red, so the tier is raised to risk:red — above both the review-nothing case and the refinement floor.
| Pass | Service/domain criticality | Change/diff risk | Business impact | Security relevance | Coupling balance | Tier |
|---|
| refinement | green | yellow | green | green | not assessed | risk:yellow |
| review | green | red | green | red | not assessed | risk:red |
Review raw max = red (Change/diff risk, Security relevance), so max(red, yellow-floor) = risk:red. The tier is raised, never lowered — a later benign diff could confirm red but could not drop it below the refinement floor.
Composition Interface
Composed by /pair-process-refine-story (refinement): invoked with $context: refinement after the technical analysis. Returns the matrix; /pair-process-refine-story embeds the 1-line + <details> into the story body (D22) and lets classify apply/propose tags. Absent ⇒ /pair-process-refine-story warns and continues without a matrix (graceful degradation — never HALTs on classify's absence).
Composed by /pair-process-review (review, Phase 1): invoked with $context: review against the PR diff. Produces the review-time matrix (confirm-or-raise, never lower). The /pair-capability-assess-security verdict (Phase 2) feeds the Security relevance dimension and the /assess-coupling verdict feeds Coupling balance — both raise-only, consistent with the review floor. Any raise to risk:red is surfaced for /pair-process-review's own decision step; classify never blocks or merges — it has no such authority.
Invoked directly: classify a single card or PR on demand; same algorithm, $context auto-detected.
Edge Cases
- No quality model doc installed: HALT, pointer to #221. (The only hard stop.)
tech/risk-matrix.md absent or malformed: KB defaults apply completely; no tags emitted; nothing fails (quality-model §6, D21).- Conflicting manual tags on the card:
classify output wins for classification tags (risk:*, cost:*); foreign tags untouched.
- Unreadable diff (huge/binary): fall back to file-path/service-level evidence; flag low confidence in the
<details>.
- Projection defined but PM tool lacks label-API access: matrix still written to the body; tagging failure reported, non-blocking.
- Coupling sources absent: coupling dimension "not assessed", excluded from the max, never blocks (D21).
- PR with no classification present (read by a downstream consumer, not produced here): treated as
red (fail-safe, quality-model §3.2).
Graceful Degradation
See graceful degradation (guideline missing → minimal run, ask directly; adoption file missing → run against KB defaults; PM tool unreachable → matrix returned to caller, tagging deferred). Additional cases:
/pair-capability-assess-security not available (review): fall back to the path-heuristic security relevance (quality-model §3.1) instead of the verdict; note the fallback./assess-coupling not installed / no DDD artifacts: coupling dimension "not assessed" (never a HALT)./pair-process-refine-story or /pair-process-review absent as caller: run standalone via direct invocation.
Notes
- Applies the model, owns no criteria (D18) — grep-verifiable: no green/yellow/red threshold lives in this file that is not a reference back to quality-model §3. Consumers downstream (gate,
/pair-process-review, /pair-next) read tags only.
- Built exactly twice per work item (D17): refinement (story context) and review (diff). Review confirms or raises, never lowers — the never-lower rule is a floor over the refinement tier, per dimension and overall.
- Deterministic: same input (card/PR + model + adoption) ⇒ same matrix and tags every run (AC4). No randomness, no time-dependence.
- Reading budget (D22): the body/report output is 1 line +
<details>, never an inline table.
- Writes two kinds of thing itself: the matrix into the card/PR body (Step 4) and — only on a confirmed first-run proposal — the
## Tag Projection registry section in tech/risk-matrix.md (Step 5, the quality-model §5 self-write precedent, mirroring /pair-capability-verify-quality's Custom Gate Registry). Adoption decision content is never self-written — that routes through /pair-capability-record-decision; the Tag Projection section is config-registry state, not a decision record.
- No eligibility tag: automation eligibility is an adoption-declared filter over classification tags (
risk:green, …), not a special tag — /pair-next consumes it generically (quality-model §5, D18).
- Idempotent — see idempotency convention: re-running on an already-classified card recomputes the same matrix; a declared or opted-out Tag Projection is never re-proposed. Review re-runs recompute against the current diff (a raise can happen commit-to-commit; a lower never can).
