| name | dogfood |
| type | skill |
| category | meta |
| description | Delegated instruction testing — write instructions, commission contextless execution, observe friction, iterate, review quality, codify. |
| triggers | ["dogfood","test these instructions","instruction testing","delegated execution test"] |
| modifies_files | true |
| needs_task | true |
| mode | execution |
| domain | ["meta","framework"] |
| allowed-tools | Agent, Read, Grep, Glob, Bash, Edit, Write, Skill |
| model | opus |
| version | 0.1.0 |
| permalink | skills-dogfood |
Delegated Instruction Testing Guidelines
Test whether a set of instructions produces correct, complete, and verified outcomes when executed by a contextless agent. Do not perform the work yourself.
Core Directives
Phase 0: Verification & Data Landscape Mapping
Before writing instructions or propagating subagent results:
- Verify verdicts: Use
/verify by citation to evaluate the subagent's actual output (freshness, completeness, limitations) against the original brief. Do not blindly accept or relay its self-reported status.
- Sample data sources: Open and read sample files directly. Do not assume data formats or presence (e.g. verify if a file contains input vs. output).
- Map data channels: Understand how data flows between main agents, subagents, and hooks/logs. Verify the exact delivery mechanism (e.g. tool result vs. system message).
- Glob safety: Avoid globbing large directories (10K+ files) with commands like
ls *.md (which fail silently). Use targeted list/find queries (find or ls | head).
Phase 1: Research and Draft
- Write self-contained instructions detailing objectives, exact data paths, sampling parameters, expected output format, and saving locations.
- Work directly in the target skill file for mature instructions. Avoid leaving stray scratch files in the repo.
- Enforce
/craft author mode review to check for shallow-execution vulnerabilities before delegating.
Phase 2: Commission Execution
- Scale incrementally: Start with a small batch size (e.g. N=2 tasks) to verify the pipeline before scaling.
- Isolate context: Launch the subagent with only the instruction file as context. Do not provide verbal coaching.
- Execution management: Let the agent run. Do not abort/restart for scope changes; send a redirect message to the running agent instead. Interrupt only for active harm.
Phase 3: Analyze Friction and Iterate
- Analyze transcripts to classify friction (e.g. missing paths, ambiguous criteria, shallow analysis).
- Update the instructions in-place to address root causes, avoiding over-fitting to the specific test instance.
- Run at least 2 verification trials per condition when verifying that an edit closed a gap.
Phase 4: Independent Quality Review
- Commission a separate review agent (e.g.
/strategic-review or ) to evaluate depth, accuracy, and fitness of the subagent's deliverables.
