atlas-synthesize

name	atlas-synthesize
description	Phase S (Synthesize) — emit the scout-report.md artifact that downstream agents (SPECTRA, APIVR-Δ, human) consume. Hard cap 3000 tokens; every factual clause cited with FINDING-XXX; every recommended action carries a handoff label. Use after Phase A (Abstract) fold is validated and DECISION_TARGET has an answer or its gaps are recorded. Final phase of an ATLAS mission.
allowed-tools	memex_read view_file
metadata	{"methodology":"ATLAS","phase":"S"}

SKILL: Synthesize — scout report emission (Phase S)

When to use

Load when: fold summary is validated and all DECISION_TARGET sub-questions are either answered or recorded as gaps.

Unload when: scout-report.md is emitted and handed off.

---

Contract

Field	Value
LLM calls permitted	Yes — this is the substantive synthesis edge.
Tool budget	≤ 15% of mission max_tool_calls. Mostly memex.read for quoted excerpts.
Output	scout-report.md conforming to templates/scout-report.md

---

What this phase does

Emit the single artifact downstream agents will consume. Everything upstream was preparation; this is the delivery. The report must be:

• Self-contained. A SPECTRA or APIVR-Δ agent receiving it should not need to re-explore the codebase.
• Decision-ready. Answers DECISION_TARGET explicitly, not implicitly.
• Handoff-labeled. Every recommended action is tagged with the right downstream agent.
• Small. Hard cap 3000 tokens total. If you need more, the mission should have been split.

---

Structure (mandatory, in order)

1. Mission recap (≤150 tokens)

Copy verbatim from mission.md:

• MISSION-ID, GOAL, DECISION_TARGET, SCOPE.

Do not paraphrase. Downstream agents key off these fields.

2. Topology summary (≤500 tokens, ≤10 bullets)

Distilled from map.md. Each bullet is one structural fact with at least one path reference. Example:

- HTTP entrypoint: POST /ballots/:id/cast → BallotsController#cast
  (config/routes.rb:42).
- Single FlowObject handles vote recording: RecordVote
  (app/flows/vote_casting/record_vote.rb).
- Authorization policy: VotingAuthorizer
  (app/policies/voting_authorizer.rb).
- No background-job path; synchronous only [GAP-003, M].
- Test coverage: test/flows/record_vote_test.rb (42 cases).

3. Answer to DECISION_TARGET (≤800 tokens)

The substantive deliverable. Every factual clause is followed by a FINDING-XXX reference. If a question couldn't be answered, say so and cite the GAP-XXX.

This section is where the LLM earns its keep. Graph retrieval and AST parsing got the facts; synthesis turns them into an answer shaped like what a senior engineer would write in a PR description or a design doc comment.

Style rules:

• One answer per sub-question. No meandering.
• Confidence tier flows through: M-tier findings warrant "likely" language; L-tier findings are flagged as assumptions.
• No new claims beyond what findings establish. If you notice a gap while writing, stop and decide: spawn follow-up mission, or record in §5.

4. Recommended next actions (≤600 tokens)

Ranked list. Each item:

R-1 [→ SPECTRA] | priority: high
    Draft spec for hardening authorization on RecordVote#call to cover
    the anonymous-ballot case [GAP-003].
    References: FINDING-017, GAP-003.

R-2 [→ APIVR-Δ] | priority: medium
    Add a test asserting that RecordVote#call refuses guest users.
    References: FINDING-017. Estimated timebox: up to 0.5 days.

R-3 [→ human]   | priority: high
    Decide policy for retry behavior when cast_vote_records write fails
    mid-request. No existing convention.
    References: GAP-003, FINDING-021.

Handoff labels are mechanical:

• → SPECTRA — needs spec generation before implementation.
• → APIVR-Δ (or → APIVR) — spec is clear; ready for implementation loop.
• → human — blocked on a judgment call you cannot make.
• → ATLAS — deserves a follow-up scout mission (max recursion = 1).

5. Risks & gaps (≤300 tokens)

Every GAP-XXX surfaced in Abstract, plus any risk identified during synthesis. Each entry gets a confidence tier and, if possible, a proposed mitigation.

6. Telemetry (≤100 tokens)

phase   | tokens_in | tokens_out | tool_calls
A (Assess)      | 412   | 280    | 0
T (Traverse)    | 2,104 | 620    | 14
L (Locate)      | 8,730 | 1,840  | 47
A (Abstract)    | 1,520 | 1,980  | 3
S (Synthesize)  | 2,100 | 2,450  | 6
TOTAL           |14,866 | 7,170  | 70

fold_ratio: 0.09
η (search efficiency): 0.28

---

Synthesis anti-patterns

Anti-pattern	Why it's wrong	Fix
Restating every finding	Report bloat, obscures the answer	§3 is prose, not a findings dump; the index is already in the fold
Adding new claims ("also, I noticed...")	Bypasses evidence anchoring	New observations = new findings = back to Locate
Omitting confidence language	Downstream misreads M as H	"Likely", "not directly verified", "inferred from X" — but only when tier is M or L
Generic next actions	Wastes downstream agent's context	Every recommended action has a concrete anchor and a labeled handoff
Answering questions the mission didn't ask	Scope creep	If it's valuable, propose it as R-N with → ATLAS follow-up tag

---

Handoff emission

After scout-report.md is written, emit exactly one handoff block:

<handoff>
  <primary_recipient>SPECTRA</primary_recipient>
  <fallback_recipient>human</fallback_recipient>
  <report_path>artifacts/ATLAS/scout-report-MISSION-042.md</report_path>
  <critical_gaps>GAP-003</critical_gaps>
  <open_questions>
    - Retry policy on partial CVR write (R-3)
  </open_questions>
</handoff>

Downstream tooling parses this block deterministically.

Envelope sidecar (ECL v2.0)

Immediately after the <handoff> block, also emit a scout-report.envelope.json file adjacent to the scout report. This is a terminal Phase-S artefact in the same class as scout-report.md — it is produced by the harness as Phase-S output, NOT via a write tool call, preserving the I-1 read-only invariant.

Use templates/scout-report.envelope.json as the fill-in-the-blank skeleton. Key fields to populate:

• artifact.path — relative path to the scout-report.md file (e.g. artifacts/ATLAS/scout-report-MISSION-042.md).
• artifact.sha256 + integrity.value — SHA-256 hex digest of the scout-report file bytes. Compute with shasum -a 256 <file> | awk '{print $1}' or equivalent. The values MUST match.
• artifact.size_bytes — byte count of the scout-report file (wc -c < <file> | tr -d '[:space:]').
• from.version — ATLAS SemVer at the time of emission (e.g. "1.13.0").
• to.eidolon / to.version — primary handoff recipient (usually "spectra"). See SPEC.md §6 for recipient mapping.
• performative — "PROPOSE" for ATLAS→SPECTRA scout handoffs (ECL v2.0 §2; closed ten-performative set, unchanged from v1.0).
• objective — one sentence ≤240 chars matching the mission GOAL.
• trace.host, trace.model, trace.ts — fill from the active session context.

ISE block (ECL v2.0 §6.5, optional but always emitted by ATLAS):

• ise.assertion_grade — always "self-attested". Scout-report claims are evidence-anchored (I-7: every claim carries path:line + confidence tier) but are ATLAS's own internal validation, not an externally-verified check by another Eidolon — self-attested is the accurate grade, not validated and not unverified.
• ise.provenance.methodology_version — "atlas-<version>" (e.g. "atlas-1.13.0"), pattern ^[a-z][a-z0-9-]*-\d+\.\d+\.\d+$.
• ise.provenance.tool_surface — optional; the subset of ATLAS's seven read-only tools actually invoked this mission.
• ise.provenance.lateral_consults — optional; record a FORGE consult here if one occurred ({"eidolon": "forge", "performative": "PROPOSE"}).
• ise.receiver_authorization — always {"auto_route": true, "auto_merge": false, "auto_deploy": false}. SPECTRA or APIVR-Δ MAY auto-route the scout report into their own intake without an operator confirm, but MUST NOT auto-merge or auto-deploy anything on the strength of a scout report alone (§6.5.3/§6.5.6 — receivers MUST NOT take an action whose corresponding flag is false).

Reference contract: eidolons-ecl/contracts/atlas-to-spectra.yaml (in the Rynaro/eidolons-ecl repo) defines the normative from/to/edge_origin/ performative values for the ATLAS→SPECTRA edge.

Validate the emitted envelope against schemas/ecl-envelope.v2.json before marking Phase S complete.

Change-worthy findings: if this mission surfaced ≥1 finding that asserts a defect, a spec/impl drift, or a genuine gap, and the consumer project is ESL-enabled (.spectra/ present), load skills/esl-hop.md before finalizing this section — it frames the ESL proposal inside the same scout-report.md + envelope you are already emitting (no new artefact).

CRYSTALIUM ingest (memory persistence)

After the envelope sidecar is validated, persist the handoff to CRYSTALIUM:

mcp__crystalium__ingest(
  envelope = <the validated scout-report.envelope.json contents>,
  payload  = <scout-report.md contents>
)

This records the scout-report at T1 with full ECL provenance (from.eidolon=atlas drives tier derivation; integrity.value is stored as provenance.content_hash). The read-only constraint (I-1) applies to the codebase — calling memory MCP tools is explicitly allowed and does not violate I-1.

Direct episodic notes (optional): For notable mid-cycle observations not worth a full handoff (e.g. a non-obvious naming convention, a recurring gap pattern), call:

mcp__crystalium__commit(
  layer      = "episodic",
  payload    = <observation>,
  provenance = { author_agent: "atlas", mission_id: <MISSION-ID> }
)

author_agent MUST be "atlas" on every direct commit.

Session end

After ingest completes (or after the handoff block if CRYSTALIUM is absent), call:

mcp__crystalium__session_end()

This triggers Dream consolidation asynchronously. Call it once per mission completion.

Graceful skip: if mcp__crystalium__* tools are unavailable (CRYSTALIUM not installed), proceed without memory — skip the ingest and session_end calls and mark Phase S complete normally. Never hard-fail on absent CRYSTALIUM tools.

---

Exit gate

• All six sections present in order.
• Total report ≤ 3000 tokens.
• Every factual clause in §3 has a FINDING-XXX reference.
• Every R-N in §4 has a concrete handoff label.
• Every GAP-XXX from the fold appears in §5.
• Handoff block emitted and well-formed.
• Envelope sidecar emitted, schema-valid against schemas/ecl-envelope.v2.json, integrity.sha256 matches payload.
• ise.assertion_grade: "self-attested" present with ise.receiver_authorization set to {auto_route: true, auto_merge: false, auto_deploy: false}.
• mcp__crystalium__ingest called with the envelope + payload (or CRYSTALIUM absent and skip noted).
• mcp__crystalium__session_end called once (or CRYSTALIUM absent and skip noted).
• Memex remains intact; downstream agents can dereference anchors.

If exit gate fails, the mission did not complete. Report STATUS: partial in the recap and escalate — do not ship a half-formed report.