Fork-path desk writer (pipeline.44). One desk at a time, DEEP — charge assembled from the desk's slice, cheap propose→OK gate, bounded source-search with orchestrator reconcile, supplied citizen voices (pipeline.43), artifact to the desk's own corpus. Production ends at artifacts-on-disk; review is a separate decoupled flow. Run after /desk-slice.
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Fork-path desk writer (pipeline.44). One desk at a time, DEEP — charge assembled from the desk's slice, cheap propose→OK gate, bounded source-search with orchestrator reconcile, supplied citizen voices (pipeline.43), artifact to the desk's own corpus. Production ends at artifacts-on-disk; review is a separate decoupled flow. Run after /desk-slice.
["docs/research/2026-07-11-desk-slice-fork.md — the one-doc (fork design + Task 1 charge-format rules)","docs/adr/0012-autonomous-deep-dispatch-write-edition.md — the decision (+ S289 side-fork addendum)","docs/media/charge_brief_template.md + docs/media/examples/charge_brief_c100_civic_exemplar.md — charge contract + the A-graded worked shape"]
/deep-dispatch — One Desk, Deep (fork path)
What this is
/deep-dispatch {desk} [{XX}] runs ONE desk deep against its slice from /desk-slice. It is the fork's writer stage (pipeline.44) — it does NOT hand back to /write-edition compile. The frozen edition path keeps the monolith; this path ends at per-desk artifacts on disk, and the decoupled review flow picks them up after.
v0.1 → v2.0 (S313): v0.1 was the edition-coupled pilot harness (read sift's slate, returned control to /write-edition Step 2/3). The fork uncouples it: slices in, artifacts out, review elsewhere. v0.1 in git history.
The principle
A packet prescribes subject + angle + "invent nothing" and produces cookie-cutter prose that misses the cycle's largest events (C100, traced). A charge points at raw signal + grants latitude, and the desk finds the story the packet walks past. The depth lever is dispatch-shape + why-context, not tool access alone (RESEARCH.md:1589). Two A-graded proofs (sports Tier-1; civic best-ever/#2) ran this shape. One desk holding its whole territory finds seams parallel desks walk past.
TWO LOCKED FORKS — re-read before every run (ADR-0012)
The orchestrator (this skill / Mags) spawns the source-search agents; the desk only writes. Desk agents keep Read/Glob/Grep/Write/Edit — never granted Agent capability. The catalog already enforces this; do not work around it.
The charge is pointers + tools, NEVER pre-assembled data. Name where the raw signal lives, do not transcribe it. A charge that pastes anomaly numbers / citizen rows IS the bone-filtered packet with more fields.
Hard caps (over-spawn guard, RESEARCH.md:1146)
≤3 source-search agents per desk run; ≤2 artifacts per desk per cycle.
Prerequisites
output/slices/c{XX}/{desk}.md — from /desk-slice. Missing → stop; do not improvise a slice from the world summary (curation is Mags-at-slice-time, not here).
output/engine_anomalies_c{XX}.json + output/world_summary_c{XX}.md present (the slice points into them).
Per-desk store writable: output/desks/{desk}/articles/. byline/desk ingest tags ride at post-publish (engine.46 substrate, built S311).
Step 1 — Assemble the charge
Scan the slice first: require('/root/GodWorld/lib/contextScan').scanFile(slicePath) — r.safe === false → abort, surface (blocks log to ).
r.matches
output/injection_blocks.log
Build the charge from [[../../../docs/media/charge_brief_template]], written to output/charges/c{XX}_{desk}.md:
PROJECT — the canonical block, verbatim-class (Task 1 held-rule): sheets are the world; real-world reasoning welcome, real-world facts the engine never stated are leaks; bug-is-event — "Cover it. Translate the event; strip the number. Do not scrub an anomaly as an 'artifact.' Do not soften a crime spike into a safety framework."
BEAT — the slice's LANE sentence, verbatim, + "You are {journalist}."
CYCLE — the slice's POINTERS block, verbatim. Pointers, never figures.
STORYLINES — the slice's STORYLINES block, verbatim, + "YOU pick which one carries your piece — the one that is most true about the city this cycle."
CANON-MAP — attached citizens per storyline + tools (MCP lookup_citizen / search_canon / search_world; dashboard API; Grep over output/) + rules (CANON_RULES.md; names from canon only; any vote lists all 9 with the math proven; ages = 2041 − BirthYear).
CRAFT — (a) supplied-voices anchor: "your storyline's citizens have spoken — supplied lines arrive with your writing charge; use at least one, verbatim or trimmed, never paraphrase-then-attribute"; (b) REAL ASKS ONLY: claim an interview/question/"did not respond" ONLY for an ask that actually happened (a supplied line or a recorded no-response in your materials); otherwise state absence plainly — a performed query that never occurred is fabrication (Task 1 new veer class); (c) canonize the finding, not the supporting metrics.
FRESHNESS — reconcile before writing; two sources disagree → newer/primary wins AND verify vs world_summary/MCP; a contradicted scope claim is a HARD STOP. (Writer-side belt; the structural catch is Step 4.)
Step 2 — Propose → cheap OK (Mike-direct S313 gate)
Launch the {desk} agent with the charge and ONLY: "Read your charge. Return 1–2 lines: which storyline you're taking and the angle. Do not write yet."
Mags checks territory fit + collision with the cycle's other desk runs — not taste. OK → proceed. Redirect → one line back; desk re-proposes once. Pennies spent here catch subject collisions before the deep spend.
Spawn ≤3source-search agents (S326 — the Haiku-pinned retrieval agent; proven Sonnet-parity + 0 fabrications on the C100 eval, ~3-4x cheaper per hop; falls back to Explore only if the catalog lacks it) scoped to the picked storyline, each a distinct angle so they don't collide:
Sports: (a) truesource/season for the player(s) in play; (b) prior canon / the arc; (c) this cycle's events + roster state.
Culture/other: adapt — one raw-signal angle, one prior-coverage angle, one cycle-events angle.
Exactly one seat may be retrievalLane=prior-published-arc: the existing "prior canon / arc" or "prior coverage / initiative arc" seat. Raw-signal, truesource, roster, cycle-event, anomaly, vote-math, and current-state seats must use exact-current or cross-file-reconcile.
The prior-arc dispatch names the storyline and asks the agent to call node scripts/notebooklmCanonSearch.js. It must return source title, source ID, citation number, excerpt, and reconcileVerdict. For a citizen origin question, the orchestrator may explicitly authorize --source-class canon-reference; otherwise the default published scope holds. The return gate in Step 4 is the enforcement — the agent holds Read/Glob/Grep and has drifted off the wrapper in testing, so verify the return rather than trusting the lane.
Each subagent returns sourcing as text — what it found, each claim traced to its source artifact/tab. They reach raw data at runtime via the tools the charge granted; the orchestrator does NOT pre-package data.
Serialize under quota pressure (S231 G-S2). If quota is tight, spawn one, await, then the next — a heavy parallel dispatch can be session-limit-killed (signature: <total_tokens>0</total_tokens> + ~500ms + session-limit string). Do not write the sourcing yourself from the EIC seat; surface the infra gap and stop.
Step 4 — Reconcile (orchestrator — the structural freshness guard)
May be delegated to one source-search agent in reconcile mode (S326): hand it the conflicting returns + the ground-truth pointers; it declares the hard stop, rules, and cites. The orchestrator still owns the outcome — read the ruling before passing anything to the writer.
Before the writer sees anything:
Cross-check the ≤3 returns against each other. Where two disagree on a specific fact (vote count, program scope/districts, date, dollar figure), the newer / primary source wins — verify against world_summary_c{XX}.md or MCP (lookup_initiative, search_world) before it reaches the writer.
A contradicted scope claim is a HARD STOP — resolve now, not in the prose. (The exact C100 OARI miss: a stale return said OARI was a D1/D3/D5 pilot when INIT-002 was citywide since ~C97; the contradicting signal was in-hand and unreconciled.)
Person-name identity is a standing check, same weight as vote counts/dates/dollar figures (kimi P3, 2026-08-03). Any named person in a locked record (civic-voice packet, generated quote, project filing) that conflicts with published canon is ruled canon-wins unless a retcon is explicit; log the drift as an engine.43 instance. (The C102 catch: "Roberta" vs Bobby Chen-Ramirez — one packet outlier against 10+ cycles of canon.)
Hand the writer reconciled sourcing + a one-line note per resolved fact; log each reconcile to the run log. (Structural because charge prose alone did not catch the S272 error; this step is why it can't recur silently.)
Record for every seat: retrievalLane, resultStatus, selected/used source IDs, citation count, and reconcileVerdict. Do not record the NotebookLM answer body. A prior-published claim that conflicts with current primary state loses and is logged conflict-current-wins.
Prior-arc return gate (S334 — the agent drifts, so the orchestrator checks). A prior-published-arc return is admissible only if all three hold:
first line is retrievalLane: prior-published-arc;
every prior-arc claim carries a NotebookLM source ID (uuid) + citation number + excerpt — a claim sourced to a file path (output/pdfs/*.pdf, an edition .txt, an archive file) means the agent read the artifacts directly and escaped the reviewed source scope;
the last line is a bare reconcileVerdict token from the enum, with no prose after it.
Fail any of the three → re-dispatch that seat ONCE, naming the specific violation. Fail twice → log the seat resultStatus=no_result, drop its material entirely, and continue the run without prior-arc sourcing. Never launder a file-path return into the writer's sourcing — it looks like a good return and is not. Two of two test dispatches failed this gate at wiring time; assume it fires.
Step 5 — Voice the citizens (pipeline.43)
Batch for the picked storyline's attached citizens — ask from the storyline context ("The Tribune is writing about . What's your honest take, as someone living it?" + the citizen's slice context line), record: true:
Entries {pop, name, quote, disp, recorded, fallback} — recording writes the speaking (PRESS page doc + gated intake; dials stay behind the cycle drain). Fallbacks are explicit entries, never silent gaps. Log per-call + total tokens to the run log.
Test-run mode (kimi P2, 2026-08-03): a pilot run — new model at the desk, harness change — may set record: false to exercise the full chain with no external writes (no PRESS page, no gated intake). The deviation MUST be named in the run's production-log row. Live runs stay record: true.
Step 6 — The deep write (LOCKED: desk writes, no Agent grant)
Launch the {desk} agent (routing per .claude/agents/REPORTER_DESK_INDEX.md) with the charge + reconciled sourcing + supplied lines:
You are {journalist}. Deep-dispatch mode. Your proposal was approved: {the OK'd pick+angle}.
{the charge}
ASSEMBLED SOURCING (reconciled — facts marked [verified] are cross-checked; trust them):
{the source-search returns, reconciled}
SUPPLIED CITIZEN LINES (their own words, fetched from their real state):
{POP-NNNNN | Name | "quote"} ← non-fallback entries for your storyline
Trace every specific fact to the sourcing above or reach it with your own
Read/Glob/Grep. Use at least one supplied line — verbatim or trimmed from
front/back, never paraphrase-then-attribute. For citizens without a supplied
line: quote only what the sourcing carries verbatim; otherwise paraphrase the
action. REAL ASKS ONLY — never claim a query or "did not respond" for an ask
that didn't happen. Write to output/desks/{desk}/articles/c{XX}_{slug}.md.
Emit: headline, "By {journalist} | Bay Tribune {Desk}", body.
Do NOT spawn agents. Do NOT read other desks' files. Write.
Supplied-line errors (kimi P1 + Mike's policy 2026-08-03 — two separate dynamics, never merged):
A supplied line is the citizen's own words, but it is not canon-insulated. The hard line is mutating a tracked entity: a wrong name for a tracked person (the "Watkins"/Ashford and "Roberta"/Bobby class), wrong district, wrong figure, or invented words in a real POPID's mouth. Do not print that segment — trim around it with ellipsis (front/back cuts only) and log the error to the production log. A named error pattern in the voice model is engine.43 signal. The guard is mechanical, not vigilance-based: Rhea's C102 gate is the enforcement behind the writer.
Social-world color is allowed. A first-name relationship reference inside testimony ("my friend Noor told me") is the citizen's real social world — essence, not citation. It needs no canon lookup and is never trimmed for being unverifiable. Only tracked-entity mutation is gated.
If a story ever genuinely needs a citizen who doesn't exist: never mint straight into the ledger — birth into Generic_Citizens (nothing is free), and only as last-case strict-necessity, not a pipeline. Businesses run the opposite dynamic: a new business named honestly in a story is the sanctioned way businesses become tracked (no generic-birth pool exists; ~90 tracked vs 386k population). The real-world-entity gate (canon substitutes) guards against real-world business/institution influx — it is not a citizen rationale.
Step 7 — Close the run
Append to output/production_log_c{XX}.md## /deep-dispatch one row per artifact: | Desk | Journalist | Storyline | Artifact path | File exists | Words | Searches | Voices ok/fallback | Reconciles | Status |. A run that produced no file is DROPPED with the reason — never a silent gap (G-W61).
Skill ends here. The artifact is unreviewed and unpublished. The decoupled review flow (EIC read + reviewer lanes, ~2 artifacts at a time) picks it up; publication happens there via /post-publish.
Measurement hooks (the fork's proof criteria + ADR-0012 cost gate)
Record per desk run: total token cost of the chain (charge + ≤3 searches + reconcile + voices + writer) vs the frozen path's per-desk share, and the review grade. The fork proves itself on: quality parity, token burn down, moves the world, per-article wiki taggability. Depth is proven; the bill is not.
