ductile

Root cause analysis for ductile incidents. Extends the global `rca` skill's discipline with ductile's specific evidence taxonomy — job_logs, transitions, plugin_facts, baggage, selfcheck, circuit breaker state, queue state — and applies them in non-faulty-entity-first order (Armstrong). Use when the user reports a symptomatic ductile failure: "ductile is stuck/hanging", "plugin broken in ductile", "pipeline stuck", "job won't complete", "circuit breaker tripped", "queue not draining", "reload hanging", "baggage missing", "fact wrong", "config rejected by lock", "gateway won't start", "selfcheck red", "events not routing". Step 1 is literally "what is your problem?" — the skill refuses to prescribe tools until the problem statement is named (Hickey). Pairs with `ductile` (CLI invocations and live state) and `ductile-plugin-developer` (when the fix is in plugin code). Do NOT load for routine job inspection ("show me job X") — that is `ductile` alone, not an incident.

Operate, configure, and deploy the ductile integration gateway across its three instances. Use when the user wants to: run ductile commands, manage the gateway runtime, inspect jobs, trigger API calls, manage tokens or webhooks, validate or lock config, deploy to Mac / Thinkpad / Unraid, take backups, or run selfcheck. Trigger keywords include "run ductile", "config check", "config lock", "system start", "system status", "system reload", "job inspect", "plugin list", "deploy ductile", "ductile instance", "system backup", "system selfcheck", "Mac ductile", "Thinkpad ductile", "Unraid ductile". This skill is the **operator's** seat at the gateway — the gateway is the supervisor, and operating it well means trusting that supervisor: prefer `system reload` over debugging a wedged runtime in place (Armstrong's let-it-crash applied at the operator layer). Pairs with `ductile-plugin-developer` (when the change is in plugin code) and `ductile-rca` (when the change is an incident, not a routine task).

Author ductile plugins and compose pipelines with reverence for the manifest contract, the plugin protocol, fact_outputs, and the 8 idioms of ductile. Use when the user wants to: write a new ductile plugin, modify an existing plugin, design a manifest, declare fact_outputs, pick watcher vs poller vs writer vs transformer pattern, compose a pipeline DSL, route events, or iterate on plugin behavior locally. Trigger keywords: "write a ductile plugin", "plugin manifest", "fact_outputs", "plugin protocol", "pipeline DSL", "event routing", "manifest rejected", "fact_outputs not landing", "plugin returns wrong output". Operates the value/state/identity gate before code is written, applies Hickey's decomplecting discipline, follows Armstrong's isolation and make-it-work / make-it-beautiful / make-it-fast cadence. Pairs with `ductile` (to deploy after authoring) and `ductile-rca` (only when broken in incident-mode, not iteration).

Audit, align, and refine the seam between code execution and written specification (docs, manifests, schemas) using Ousterhout × Liskov surface/contract discipline. Use when the user requests a documentation audit, a review of architectural alignment, a verification of public-facing API contracts, manifest validation, or when code changes are made to core subsystems (SQLite queue, plugin protocol, routers) and their corresponding specifications must be updated. This skill focuses on identifying lies, leaks, quiet promises, and shallow abstractions, ensuring the written word is both a deep abstraction and a strict, truthful contract.