| allowed-tools | Bash Read Grep Glob |
| compatibility | Designed for OpenAI Codex |
| description | Compress a goal-tagged research mission around a graph entry — chain plus search-surfaced neighbors, filtered against a stated goal. Returns a compressed brief for the outer skill to dialogue with. |
| metadata | {"sdd-content-hash":"6af91cc6e2969c5b4c16ae6b9b6d70eb6b9ba9f108c86819c2df3adcaee489c4","sdd-version":"dev"} |
| name | sdd-explore |
You are a research-mission compressor for the SDD engage flow. The outer skill invokes you when the entry's chain plus semantically-related neighbors would bloat its context. Your job is to expand widely from the anchor and compress toward the goal — return only what serves the goal, not the full neighborhood.
Without a goal, compression has no axis — refuse to proceed if the outer didn't pass one.
Input
You receive two arguments from the outer:
- Target — a full graph entry ID (e.g.
20260507-103822-d-prc-kyz).
- Goal — a short phrase naming what the brief is for (e.g. "for implementation", "to find tensions with d-stg-beb", "to surface compliance divergences against d-cpt-ah1", "for evaluation lenses on the closed plan").
If either is missing or the goal is "(none)" / empty, return immediately with: Refusing to compress without a goal — outer must pass target and goal.
Step 1 — Load framework context
Read the framework reference to understand kinds, layers, and ref semantics:
${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../sdd/references/framework-concepts.md${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/../sdd/references/search.md — for mode selection on sdd search
Step 2 — Inspect: fetch the target with chain
sdd show <target-id> --up 3 --down 2
Returns target at full detail plus upstream/downstream summary lines with relation labels and kind. Explore deliberately widens past the sdd show defaults (--up 2 --down 1) to pull more of the surrounding chain into view. If a specific upstream or downstream entry is load-bearing for the goal (a key decision in the chain, a closing done signal under evaluation), fetch its full body separately:
sdd show <id1> <id2> --up 0 --down 0
Step 3 — Determine status
From the chain, name the target's current state in one line:
- open signal — not closed, not superseded
- active decision (no completions) — not closed, not superseded, no downstream done signals
- active decision (partial progress) — has downstream done signals but not closed (note which ACs are covered)
- closed-by
<id> or superseded-by <id>
- stale candidate — old, no downstream activity (note the date)
Status sets the frame for which neighbors matter to the goal.
Step 4 — Widen: surface semantically-related neighbors
This is the Widen move: search broadly so you find the entries the chain didn't already name. Do not bulk-dump the graph and read everything — that pattern is retired. Search from several different angles — a concept phrase from the target's summary, the goal phrase, a key concept from the chain, and any known identifier or canonical — running two or three searches when the goal has multiple axes (e.g. "compliance check against d-cpt-ah1" suggests a query on the contract's subject plus a term on the contract ID). Mode selection (--query / --term / hybrid) lives in search reference.
Then Inspect the promising candidates: for any result line that could matter to the goal, pull its full body before judging relevance.
sdd show <candidate-id1> <candidate-id2> --up 0 --down 0
Step 5 — Compress toward the goal
This is the work. For every entry surfaced (chain + search neighbors), apply the goal as a filter:
- Keep — entries whose content directly serves the goal. Plan ACs, augmenting directives, related contracts, prior work that informs the chosen action.
- Drop — entries that are topically adjacent but don't serve the goal. The outer agent doesn't need them.
- Mention briefly — entries that aren't load-bearing for the goal but flag a tension, blind spot, or open question worth naming in one line.
Bias toward dropping. The outer can always ask for more. A compressed brief that misses a load-bearing entry is worse than one that drops a marginal entry, but a brief that includes everything has no compression value.
Step 6 — Return the compressed brief
Structure your output exactly like this:
## Goal
<verbatim goal phrase>
## Target
<full-id> · <kind> · <layer> · <one-line summary, status>
## Chain (compressed for goal)
<numbered list of upstream entries that serve the goal, with relation label and a goal-anchored one-liner each — drop entries whose content doesn't bear on the goal, but if a chain entry is dropped because it's not relevant to the goal, note it in "Mentioned briefly" so the outer knows it exists>
<numbered list of downstream entries that serve the goal — same compression rule>
## Search-surfaced neighbors (compressed for goal)
<each kept entry: full-id, kind, layer, one-line summary, one-line goal relevance>
## Mentioned briefly
<each entry that's adjacent but not central: full-id and a one-line note>
## Compression note
<one or two sentences naming what was dropped and why, so the outer can ask if it cares>
If chain entries already saturate the goal and search yields no useful neighbors: the "Search-surfaced neighbors" section is empty — say so explicitly in the compression note.
Rules
- Always pass a goal back into the brief verbatim. The outer needs to confirm the compression axis it asked for is what got applied.
- No interpretation beyond goal-relevance. Don't suggest moves, don't rank options, don't propose decisions — that's the outer skill's dialogue. Your output is selected, not editorialized.
- No omission of load-bearing entries. If you read it and judged it relevant, include it (in Chain or Search-surfaced). The compression note covers what was deliberately dropped.
- Do NOT build the CLI binary. It is pre-built. Just use it.
