surogates

The Arbor research-coordinator protocol: the OBSERVE -> IDEATE -> SELECT -> DISPATCH -> DECIDE cycle over a durable Idea Tree. Preloaded automatically on /auto-research sessions. The coordinator never edits code or runs commands — executors do that in isolated worktrees; the coordinator steers the tree with idea_tree / dispatch_experiments / merge_experiment.

The Arbor executor workflow: clone the repo from the git bundle your brief hands you, implement and evaluate exactly ONE hypothesis with the file tools, then report structured results via worker_complete. Preloaded automatically on arbor-executor task workers. Never touch the held-out test split.

DECIDE-phase doctrine for an Arbor research run: when to merge, prune, combine, or finalize; how the held-out merge gate works; and the rule that the final report uses TEST scores. Load before deciding what to do with completed experiments.

Hard-gated ideation for an Arbor research run. Load at the START of every IDEATE round, before drafting any hypothesis. Enforces the PI mindset (mechanism over knob), the four-question first-principles probe, the kill-filter, and the four-line hypothesis format. Ported from Arbor's idea_drafting + first_principles_probe.

Intake for an autonomous research run (Arbor). Use when the user wants to optimize a metric in a repo over many isolated experiments — 'optimize this benchmark', 'improve the model F1 overnight', 'beat the leaderboard'. Discovers the repo/eval/splits, measures the baseline, confirms a Research Contract, then emits a ready-to-send /auto-research command. Does NOT start the run itself.

Pitfalls, examples, and edge cases for workers executing a Surogates subagent task. Loaded automatically when the dispatcher spawns a session bound to a Task (Session.task_id is set).

Decomposition playbook and anti-temptation rules for an orchestrator agent that routes work through the Surogates subagent task layer. Pair this skill with an AgentDef whose tool filter strips the implementation tools (terminal, file, web, code) — that's how 'don't do the work yourself' is enforced structurally, not just behaviorally.

You MUST use this before any creative work — creating features, building components, drafting documents, designing workflows, or modifying behavior. Explores your human partner's intent, requirements, and design before any implementation begins.

Use when facing 2+ independent tasks or investigations that can be worked on without shared state or sequential dependencies — fan out to specialized sub-agents with isolated context, then synthesize the results.

Use when you have a written implementation plan to execute inline in the current session with review checkpoints. Prefer subagent-driven-development when sub-agent dispatch is available.

Use when you have a spec or requirements for a multi-step task, before touching code or producing output. Turns a design into bite-sized, copy-pasteable tasks with exact paths and complete code.

Use when creating new skills, editing existing skills, or verifying skills work before deployment. Applies Test-Driven Development to process documentation — watch agents fail without the skill, write the skill that addresses those failures, then close loopholes.

Use this skill any time a .pptx file is involved in any way — as input, output, or both. This includes: creating slide decks, pitch decks, or presentations; reading, parsing, or extracting text from any .pptx file (even if the extracted content will be used elsewhere, like in an email or summary); editing, modifying, or updating existing presentations; combining or splitting slide files; working with templates, layouts, speaker notes, or comments. Trigger whenever the user mentions "deck," "slides," "presentation," or references a .pptx filename, regardless of what they plan to do with the content afterward. If a .pptx file needs to be opened, created, or touched, use this skill.

Use this skill whenever the user wants to do anything with PDF files. This includes reading or extracting text/tables from PDFs, combining or merging multiple PDFs into one, splitting PDFs apart, rotating pages, adding watermarks, creating new PDFs, filling PDF forms, encrypting/decrypting PDFs, extracting images, and OCR on scanned PDFs to make them searchable. If the user mentions a .pdf file or asks to produce one, use this skill.

Use this skill whenever the user wants to create, read, edit, or manipulate Word documents (.docx files). Triggers include: any mention of 'Word doc', 'word document', '.docx', or requests to produce professional documents with formatting like tables of contents, headings, page numbers, or letterheads. Also use when extracting or reorganizing content from .docx files, inserting or replacing images in documents, performing find-and-replace in Word files, working with tracked changes or comments, or converting content into a polished Word document. If the user asks for a 'report', 'memo', 'letter', 'template', or similar deliverable as a Word or .docx file, use this skill. Do NOT use for PDFs, spreadsheets, Google Docs, or general coding tasks unrelated to document generation.

Use this skill any time a spreadsheet file is the primary input or output. This means any task where the user wants to: open, read, edit, or fix an existing .xlsx, .xlsm, .csv, or .tsv file (e.g., adding columns, computing formulas, formatting, charting, cleaning messy data); create a new spreadsheet from scratch or from other data sources; or convert between tabular file formats. Trigger especially when the user references a spreadsheet file by name or path — even casually (like "the xlsx in my downloads") — and wants something done to it or produced from it. Also trigger for cleaning or restructuring messy tabular data files (malformed rows, misplaced headers, junk data) into proper spreadsheets. The deliverable must be a spreadsheet file. Do NOT trigger when the primary deliverable is a Word document, HTML report, standalone Python script, database pipeline, or Google Sheets API integration, even if tabular data is involved.

OCR for scanned/image-only PDFs and complex documents (pymupdf, marker-pdf). For text-based PDFs use read_file.

Geocode, POIs, routes, timezones via OpenStreetMap/OSRM.

Edit PDF text/typos/titles via nano-pdf CLI (NL prompts).