| name | hforge-recursive-investigate |
| description | recursive investigation orchestration using harness forge. use when the task is hard, ambiguous, cross-module, or likely to benefit from Typed RLM, bounded subcalls, durable iterations, and replayable recursive artifacts instead of chat-only reasoning. |
HForge Recursive Investigate
Trigger Signals
- the root cause is unclear and needs staged evidence gathering
- the task crosses multiple modules, services, or ownership boundaries
- the prompt is getting expensive and would benefit from compact root frames and durable artifacts
- the work needs Typed RLM, bounded code cells, proposal artifacts, or replayable investigation state
- a normal one-pass repo scan is likely to lose context or miss intermediate findings
Do not use this for straightforward single-file edits where ordinary repo inspection is enough.
Inspect First
AGENTS.md
.hforge/agent-manifest.json
.hforge/generated/agent-command-catalog.json
.hforge/runtime/index.json
.hforge/runtime/recursive/language-capabilities.json
.hforge/runtime/recursive/runtime-inventory.json
.hforge/runtime/recursive/escalation-heuristics.json
.hforge/runtime/recursive/sessions/
commands/hforge-recursive-investigate.md
Workflow
- confirm the workspace is initialized with
hforge status --root . --json
- if runtime artifacts are missing, initialize first with
hforge bootstrap --root . --yes
- inspect recursive support with
hforge recursive capabilities --root . --json
- inspect host-runtime posture with
hforge recursive runtimes --root . --json
- provision Python or PowerShell explicitly with
hforge recursive provision-runtime <python|powershell> --root . --json only when a workspace-managed alias is helpful
- create a durable session with
hforge recursive plan "<objective>" --task-id <taskId> --root . --json
- prefer
hforge recursive execute with a typed bundle before using freeform structured-analysis snippets
- use
hforge recursive run only for one bounded fallback step when Typed RLM is not the right fit
- inspect
iterations, subcalls, cells, promotions, meta-ops, score, and replay to summarize the work from durable artifacts
- stay honest about support posture, especially for Cursor and OpenCode where recursive support is translated rather than native
Output Contract
A good recursive-investigate result should include:
- the reason recursive mode was chosen
- the session id and the posture discovered from recursive capabilities and runtime inventory
- whether the agent used Typed RLM, bounded structured analysis, or both
- the most relevant iteration, scorecard, replay, or proposal artifacts
- the next recommended action based on the durable evidence