| name | using-o9k |
| description | Meta-skill for the o9k doctrine and arbitration — who owns output style, the repo map, dispatch, memory, the plan. Load at session start, on conflicts between efficiency skills, and whenever unsure Path A vs Path B — if a team-up roster exists, external CLI tmux workers require team-up + dispatch mailbox/watcher (not bare dispatch). Also use when caveman vs other output-styles collide. |
using-o9k — The Doctrine
You are running under the o9k efficiency framework. Its goal: maximize the
fraction of your context window doing useful work. Every token you emit or load
gets re-read on every subsequent turn — waste compounds.
o9k itself owns no efficiency feature. It is the connector: it decides which
installed framework owns which concern, wires them into every host, and keeps
them from colliding. Whether a given rule below applies depends on what the
user opted into — read the table, not your memory of a default install.
What applies, and when
| Situation | Concern | Owner (if installed) |
|---|
| Writing any response | Output compression | caveman (upstream project) |
| About to open/read/explore code | Context discipline | scout (o9k-scout) |
| A search, lookup, or decomposable task | Subagent isolation | dispatch path A (o9k-dispatch) |
| External CLI worker (tmux / cross-CLI) | Multi-agent roster | team-up + dispatch path B — required once a roster exists |
| Session start, project questions, "what was the state?" | Memory | memory (o9k-memory) |
| Conflict between any of the above | Arbitration | this skill |
A row whose owner is not installed simply does not apply. Do not emulate a
missing pillar by hand, and do not tell the user they are missing one unless
they ask.
Roster detection gate (run before any external CLI spawn):
command -v team-up && test -f ~/.team-up/roster.json
- No roster → Path A only (in-host RESULT subagents).
- Roster present → external CLI workers must use Path B:
runs create → team-up dispatch --run-id → cheap in-host runs wait watcher.
Bare tmux dispatch without mailbox + watcher = incomplete spawn — parent
never gets notified. See dispatch § Incomplete-spawn gate.
Core rules (always on)
- Never load what you can look up later. Prefer an ID, a path, a one-line
summary over the full content. Drill down only when the task demands it.
- Never repeat what's already in context. No restating the user's request,
no quoting code back unchanged, no summarizing your own previous message.
- Output is future input. Everything you say now is context tax on every
later turn. Say it once, say it short (see
caveman).
- Isolate the noisy work. Broad searches, log dumps, doc reading — send a
subagent (see
dispatch path A); keep only the conclusion.
- External workers need a callback. When a team-up roster exists and
you spawn an external CLI in tmux, Path B is mandatory — not a shortcut,
not "when you remember." Three steps or the spawn is incomplete:
runs create, dispatch --run-id, watcher on runs wait. Never report "running"
to the human until the watcher exists.
- Persist before you lose it. Approaching compaction or
/clear: flush
decisions, lessons, and open state to memory (see memory) — context is
ephemeral, memory is not.
Arbitration: exactly one owner per concern
Multiple efficiency frameworks installed together WILL collide. These ownership
rules resolve every collision; when a third-party framework claims a concern
below, either it or the o9k pillar must be disabled — never run two owners:
When an arbitration needs a human decision (e.g. two dispatch owners), don't
lecture — surface it once and point to /o9k-guide, which walks the user
through it and offers to apply the fix.
| Concern | Owner | Displaced alternatives |
|---|
| Output style / tone | upstream caveman | Claude Code output-styles, persona skills; caveman's own cavecrew (dispatch) and caveman-stats (cost) skills — disable those two |
| Session-start context injection | the memory MCP's hook (TIM or hmem) | any other SessionStart injector |
| The repo overview map | o9k-scout (one map per session) | codesight + Serena + repo-map all generating overviews |
| Symbol-level navigation/edits | Serena MCP if installed, else plain tools | — |
| "The plan" | beads if installed, else the plan file | plan content duplicated into CLAUDE.md or memory |
| Task/issue state | beads if installed, else memory T-entries | parallel TODO markdown files |
| Workflow methodology (TDD, review, brainstorm) | superpowers if installed | — |
| Subagent dispatch (in-host) | o9k-dispatch path A | superpowers' dispatching-parallel-agents (disabled 2026-07-17 — owner is o9k) |
| Cross-CLI who/spawn + mailbox | team-up (own repo) + o9k-dispatch path B once a roster exists | hard-coded model picks; bare team-up dispatch without runs create + --run-id + watcher; a second dispatch owner |
| The host status bar | o9k-statusline (own repo) | a second statusLine command per host |
| Markdown attribution | md-provenance (own repo) | hand-written "written by" headers |
Exceptions that override everything
Efficiency never outranks correctness or safety. Use full, explicit prose for:
security warnings, destructive/irreversible actions, legal/compliance content,
ambiguous multi-step instructions the user must follow exactly, and anything
that will be pasted somewhere else (commit messages, PR bodies, docs).
