name: crux-skill-memory-meditation-quick
description: Quick-mode meditation protocol: 6-step parallel fan-out with optional deep-confirm hook, warn-only citation validation, upfront child derivation, no peer review, K10c reflection (same rubric, warn-only at every richness level per K7). Use when the crux-cursor-meditation-guide agent runs the Quick depth-0 manager or any Quick-mode child agent.
CRUX Skill: Memory Meditation — Quick Protocol
Implements the full Quick-mode meditation contract: 6-step parallel fan-out, step 4b 4-mode additional_focus_areas[] reconciliation, init-suggestions-{ts}.yml write, K10c in-pass reflection (same rubric as Research — warn-only citation regime carried through), comprehensiveness honouring at Quick leaf depth, and the Quick-mode steps 9–13 (identical to Research with documented relaxations).
When to Use
Load this skill when:
- The
crux-cursor-meditation-guide agent is spawned in Quick mode (--quick flag, meditateMode: "quick")
- You are executing the Quick-mode depth-0 manager workflow (steps 1–13 with Quick relaxations)
- You are executing as a Quick-mode child agent at depth 1, 2, or 3 (6-step protocol)
Never load this skill in Research mode, Ensemble Aggregation mode, or Adversarial Review function.
Prerequisites
- Verify
flags.enableMemories is "true" (abort if not)
- Confirm
comprehensiveness: payload is present — abort with: "comprehensiveness: payload required; missing from spawn prompt — caller misconfigured" if missing
- Confirm
theming: payload is present — abort with a clear error pointing at Theme Preflight if missing
- Confirm
modelStrategy: payload is present — abort with: "modelStrategy: payload required; missing from spawn prompt — caller misconfigured" if missing
Input Parameters (depth-0 manager, Quick mode)
Same shape as the Research depth-0 manager parameters (see the crux-skill-memory-meditation-research skill) with meditateMode: "quick". The only parameter differences are:
- No
facet-registry.yml operations (Quick mode skips global registry)
- No
citations-index.yml initialization (Quick mode does not maintain this file)
Input Parameters (Quick child agent, depth 1–3)
meditateMode: "quick"
workingDir: "<path>"
branchNumber: {N}
meditateDepth: {D}
maxDepth: {D}
subfocus: "<subfocus>"
subfocusSlug: "<kebab-case slug>"
subfocusIndex: {S}
parentSubfocus: "<parent's subfocus or null at depth 1>"
siblingFacets: [ ... ]
theming: { ... }
comprehensiveness: { ... }
modelStrategy: { ... }
confirmDeepFacets: "none" | "depth_2_only" | "all_levels"
ensembleModel: "<model-slug>"
Depth-0 Manager Workflow (Quick Mode)
All four pre-spawn user gates run identically in Quick mode — Depth Selection (calling agent), Cost & Scope Acknowledgment (calling agent), Theme Preflight (calling agent), and Facet Confirmation (subagent step 4 Pattern-B escalation). The post-consolidation steps 9–13 also run identically with the documented Quick-mode relaxations.
Step 1 — Check Feature Guard
Verify flags.enableMemories is "true". If not, return a message saying the feature is disabled and stop.
Step 2 — Create Working Directory
Create meditations/{yyyymmdd}-{topic-slug}/. If the directory already exists, append a numeric suffix.
Step 3 — SKIP
Quick mode does not use facet-registry.yml, citations-index.yml, or .facet-registry.lock/. Sibling-aware uniqueness uses facets.md only.
Step 4 — Derive Top-Level Facets + Draft Suggestions Payload and Confirm (Pattern B)
Derive the three facets AND draft suggestions payload (proposed_sections 3–8 items, proposed_visualisations 5–10 items, additional_focus_areas 0–5 items) as in Research. Facet descriptions are NOT required to carry citation backing at this stage; per-branch ## Citations requirements still apply to every child output. Run the identical combined Pattern-B flow (write extended facets-pending-{ts}.yml with all 4 blocks, escalate via combined needs_user_input block, resume with all 5 sub-question answers). Quick mode skips the facet-registry.yml append; the rest is identical including the source_signals discipline on every draft suggestion item.
The needs_user_input block schema is identical to the Research-mode block (see the crux-skill-memory-meditation-research skill, Step 4, for the full schema). Do NOT call AskQuestion — this is the calling agent's responsibility.
Step 4b — Resume-handler: apply confirmed payload, write init-suggestions-{ts}.yml, reconcile additional focus areas
Identical to Research with these Quick-specific differences:
facet-registry.yml operations are skipped (Quick mode only)facets.md append still happens (the confirmed facet descriptions, citations, parent-context summary, and explicit partitioning statement)init-suggestions-{ts}.yml is written with the same schema (see the crux-skill-memory-meditation-research skill for the full schema)
4-mode additional-focus-area reconciliation: same as Research — canonical additional_focus_areas[] array with per-item treatment: field:
skip → record with treatment: "skip", no facet, no sectionadditional_facet → new branch spawned alongside the original 3; no dedicated report section beyond natural branch output (at compact/default); or per-branch section at detailed/exhaustivereport_section_only → record with treatment: "report_section_only" and custom_report_section_title; populate resulting_section_id; report skill includes a section by that exact titleadditional_facet_AND_section → both effects; populate both new_branch_index and custom_report_section_title
Cost-ack re-presentation: same rule as Research — if ANY focus-area decision is additional_facet OR additional_facet_AND_section, the calling agent fires the read-only-richness variant before this subagent resumes step 5. Only proceeds after cost_reack_confirmed: true.
Per-branch model assignment (modelStrategy.mode == "per_branch" only): identical to Research — after the final confirmed-branch count is known and any cost-ack re-presentation has resolved, resolve modelStrategy.branch_assignments[] per the policy in the /crux-meditate command's Argument Handling section (shuffle the pool with a topic+ts-derived seed; sample without replacement when poolSize ≥ branchCount, otherwise round-robin). The resolved assignments are surfaced in facets.md per the crux-skill-memory-meditation-coordination skill.
CRITICAL: additional_focus_areas_accepted and additional_focus_areas_skipped are LEGACY field names. The canonical schema uses a SINGLE additional_focus_areas[] array with per-item treatment: field. Never emit the legacy field names.
Hold onto confirmDeepFacets, comprehensiveness:, and modelStrategy: — all propagated unchanged to every child spawn in step 5.
Step 5 — Spawn Explorers
Identical to Research except each child receives meditateMode: "quick". The maxDepth, theming, comprehensiveness (propagated unchanged — abort if missing), modelStrategy (propagated unchanged — abort if missing), confirmDeepFacets, and ensembleModel (when present) payloads are all threaded through unchanged. Per-spawn model: dispatch is identical to Research — see the Research skill's Step 5 for the four-case rule (none / random / per_branch / ensemble_max). For per_branch, the depth-0 manager looks up modelStrategy.branch_assignments[branchNumber - 1].slug and sets it as both the child's model: and its ensembleModel so descendants inherit.
Step 6 — Poll for Branch Outputs
Identical poll loop (same prefix-glob, same resolve rule, same stale-lock guard is a no-op since no lock is ever created). The same deep-confirmation pending-facets-*.yml polling hook runs in Quick mode whenever confirmDeepFacets ≠ none.
Step 7 — SKIP
No peer review in Quick mode.
Step 8 — Consolidate + K10c Reflection
Consolidate from the branch files only at all depths that ran (per maxDepth). No peer-review files to glob, no citations-index.yml to merge. Follow the Subject-Matter Focus rule. If any branch surfaced citation gaps, include a "Citation gaps" callout in consolidation.md.
K10c in-pass reflection runs identically in Quick mode — same rubric, same scoring, same 5-candidate selection, same finalisation-enhancements.yml write. The only difference from Research is the set of inputs (no peer-review files, no citations-index.yml).
The finalisation-enhancements.yml schema is identical to Research except mode: "quick". See the crux-skill-memory-meditation-research skill for the full schema and K10c rubric.
Do NOT return to the calling agent yet — step 8b (K10b resume-handler) fires after the calling agent resolves Q-Finalisation-Enhancements, then steps 9–13 follow.
Step 8b — K10b Resume-handler for accepted enhancements
Identical to Research: re-read updated finalisation-enhancements.yml, process accepted cheap items into respawn payload, write follow-up artefacts for queued expensive items, accumulate pending_spawn_now list for spawn-now items.
Step 9 — Update facets.md with the Branch & Leaf Index (NOT SKIPPED)
Append the Branch & Leaf Index per the same format used in Research mode, with these omissions:
- No per-branch "Peer review" lines
- No Research-only
facet-registry.yml / citations-index.yml lines under "Top-level artifacts"
- Everything else (per-branch sections, depth-2/3 leaves, top-level
consolidation.md + report pair + review iterations + confirmed-facets entries, missing-slots enumeration, index metadata) is identical
See the crux-skill-memory-meditation-coordination skill for the canonical Branch & Leaf Index template.
Step 10 — Adversarial Review and Fix Cycle (NOT SKIPPED)
Same reviewer agent, same iteration cap (3), same severity classification, same Pattern-B needs_user_input contract (with the mandatory context decision-guidance), same ESCALATE semantics, with two relaxations:
- (a) "missing inline citation marker" findings are downgraded
MUST_FIX → SHOULD_FIX (consistent with Quick mode's warn-only citation rule; unresolvable markers that do exist in the body remain MUST_FIX)
- (b) the "peer review thoroughness" review dimension is N/A
Per-spawn model: dispatch for the reviewer is identical to Research — see the Research skill's Step 10. For modelStrategy.mode == "per_branch", omit model: so the reviewer runs on the caller's model (unified evaluator); for random pass the resolved slug; for none omit; for ensemble_max pass ensembleModel.
Reports are still gated on PASS / PASS_WITH_ADVISORIES; ESCALATE still aborts steps 11 and 12 exactly as in Research mode.
See the crux-skill-memory-meditation-review skill for the full review contract.
Step 11 — Re-run Branch & Leaf Index (NOT SKIPPED)
Identical to Research: refresh facets.md's Branch & Leaf Index after the reviewer's rewrites. Only runs when verdict from step 10 was PASS or PASS_WITH_ADVISORIES.
Step 12 — Generate the Mandatory Report (HTML + PDF)
Identical to Research per the fully-documented contract in the crux-skill-memory-meditation-report skill. The same theming, anti-homogenisation, Universal Contrast, light/dark, responsive-nav, PDF high-contrast print theme, clickable TOC, headless-Chrome render, filename-pairing rules, content-minimum requirements (level-driven per comprehensiveness), graceful PDF-degradation contracts, Report Comprehensiveness — No Information Loss contract, and Option Comparison Research mode all apply unchanged in Quick mode. Only runs when verdict from step 10 was PASS or PASS_WITH_ADVISORIES; never runs on ESCALATE.
Step 12b — Write Process Retrospective (NOT SKIPPED)
Identical to Research. Always written, including on ESCALATE.
Step 13 — Return to Calling Agent
Identical to Research: working directory path, facets.md, consolidation.md text + path, retrospective-{ts}.md path, report HTML+PDF pair (when generated), every review-pre-report-*-iter-*.md written by the review cycle. On ESCALATE return everything except report paths, plus a structured summary of unresolved MUST_FIX findings.
Quick Mode Child Protocol — 6-Step (Recursive, depth 1 through maxDepth - 1)
Each child agent at depth < maxDepth follows this simpler protocol.
1. Pre-derive 3 child subfocuses upfront (no prior research):
Each must be narrower than this agent's subfocus, distinct from its siblings,
and non-overlapping with the entries in facets.md. Sibling-aware only —
Quick mode does NOT consult facet-registry.yml (the registry does not exist
in Quick mode).
2. If confirmDeepFacets requires confirmation at this depth (depth_2_only at
depth 1, OR all_levels at depth 1 or depth 2):
- Write pending-facets-branch-{N}-depth-{D}-sub-{S}-{ts}.yml with the
proposed 3 children (same schema as Research-mode Phase C; see the
canonical Deep confirmation flow in the /crux-meditate command).
- Poll for the matching confirmed-facets-...-{ts}.yml.
- Apply per-child decisions (confirmed / modified / regenerate;
regenerations capped at 3 per child).
Only after all 3 children are confirmed, proceed to step 3.
3. Spawn 3 children at depth+1 in parallel with meditateMode: "quick".
Each child receives meditateMode, workingDir, branchNumber, maxDepth,
parentSubfocus, subfocus, subfocusSlug, subfocusIndex, siblingFacets, theming,
comprehensiveness (propagated unchanged — MUST be present; child aborts with
"`comprehensiveness:` payload required; missing from spawn prompt — caller
misconfigured" if missing), modelStrategy (propagated unchanged — MUST be
present; child aborts with the canonical error if missing), confirmDeepFacets
(propagated unchanged), and ensembleModel (if present — propagated unchanged
from this agent's own ensembleModel; descendants of a `per_branch` branch all
inherit the SAME ensembleModel that was assigned at the depth-0 → depth-1
dispatch point). When ensembleModel is set, pass model: ensembleModel on the
Task tool invocation.
4. While children run, do this agent's own memory-query and expansion in
parallel (Quick mode trades depth-first rigor for elapsed-time speed).
5. Wait for all 3 child files via prefix-glob
branch-{N}-depth-{D+1}-sub-{S}-*.md. If a child's citations are missing or
unresolvable, log a warning and proceed — do NOT respawn.
6. Aggregate children + own expansion into a single output file:
branch-{N}-depth-{D}-sub-{S}-{slug}-{yyyymmddHHMMSS}.md
(no rewrite — straight aggregation under ## Child Insights with
`[child: branch-N-depth-D-sub-S]` provenance markers)
Leaf depth (deepest = maxDepth, Quick mode): query memories, expand, write the leaf file branch-{N}-depth-{D}-sub-{S}-{slug}-{ts}.md. Citations are still required in the file body and ## Citations section, but there is no parent respawn enforcement (warn-only). Comprehensiveness honouring in Quick leaf depth: at comprehensiveness.level ∈ {detailed, exhaustive} (depth3_leaf_inclusion = verbatim_quotes), leaf agents MUST include verbatim quoted passages from cited sources in their ## Discoveries section (same as Research mode). The section_length_budget_tokens.per_facet cap applies. Citation validation remains warn_only at every level — the parent does NOT respawn on citation failure in Quick mode regardless of comprehensiveness level (K7 mode-driven rule).
Output File Format (Quick branch files)
Identical frontmatter to Research branch files except mode: "quick". See the crux-skill-memory-meditation-research skill for the full frontmatter schema.
Body sections (mandatory in Quick mode):
## Subfocus Rationale — why this narrowing was chosen## Discoveries — key findings from memory queries and research## Connections — patterns, relationships, non-obvious links## Child Subfocuses — the 3 narrower subfocuses derived upfront in step 1## Child Insights — aggregated from child output files in step 6 (straight aggregation with [child: branch-N-depth-D-sub-S] provenance markers — NOT a rewrite)## Contradictions — contradictions surfaced between this depth's findings and the children's## Summary — concise distillation for parent consumption## Citations — every source backing every claim. Mandatory in Quick mode; parent validates best-effort and surfaces gaps as warnings rather than re-spawning.
Citations Protocol (Quick Mode — Warn-Only)
Inline citation markers are the same vocabulary as Research ([memory: ...], [file: ...], [web: ...], [chat: ...], [child: ...]). Every output file requires a ## Citations section.
Validation rule — Quick mode: parents log warnings for missing or unresolvable citations and proceed (no respawn). The eventual report's executive summary must include a "Citation gaps" callout listing every uncited finding when this happens.
Quick mode does NOT maintain citations-index.yml — citation tracking is per-file only.
Quick vs Research Differences (Quick Column)
| Aspect | Quick (this skill) |
|---|
| Recursion order | Pre-derived: parent derives all 3 child subfocuses upfront, no prior research required |
| Facet uniqueness | Local sibling-aware only (read facets.md to avoid sibling overlap) |
| Citations | Mandatory; inline markers + ## Citations section required, but parent validates best-effort and surfaces gaps as warnings rather than re-spawning |
| Bottom-up incorporation | Parent appends ## Child Insights section aggregating children (no rewrite) |
| Peer review | None |
| Consolidation inputs | branch-* files only |
| Coordination files | facets.md only |
For the Research column, see the crux-skill-memory-meditation-research skill.
Cross-Skill References
crux-skill-memory-meditation-coordination — filename grammar, polling rules, Branch & Leaf Index templatecrux-skill-memory-meditation-review — adversarial review contract (step 10); Quick relaxations appliedcrux-skill-memory-meditation-report — report generation contract (step 12)crux-skill-memory-meditation-research — Research column of differences table + shared output schema reference + K10c rubric (same rubric; Quick uses warn-only citation regime)
