forge

name	forge
description	Use when a new skill must be created from a decision, verdict, or capability gap — the user says "forge a skill", "turn this verdict into a skill", "build a skill for X", or pantheon/nexus hands over a VERDICT recommending one. Produces a secure, evaluated, quarantined skill package with an AI-BOM.
allowed-tools	Read, Grep, Glob, LS, Bash, Edit, Write, Agent, Skill

forge — verdict → secure, evaluated, registered skill

Eight gated phases; no phase starts until the previous one's criterion is met, and no skill leaves quarantine without the human. House law applies throughout: skill-authoring-standard (four gates + frontmatter SSOT) and the Fable-5 restraint rules already in the estate playbook — minimum skill that closes the gap, nothing speculative. Australian English in all generated content.

Hard refusals (§A): forge will not emit a skill that executes attacker-controllable input, ships a destructive default action, contains offensive/exploit code, or whose purpose is to avoid, weaken, or probe a safeguard. On stop_reason:"refusal" during any generation subtask: re-dispatch that subtask to Opus 4.8 (Agent with model: "opus") — fall back, never evade.

Phases

1. Discovery. State the capability gap in one sentence + who invokes the skill and when. Done when: gap + invoker + trigger written down.
2. Spec gate. Run new-spec (grounded spec, not a template) — no skill without an approved spec.md. Done when: the human has approved spec.md.
3. Design. Lightest viable archetype per the authoring standard (command-skill / agent-role / plain-technique); depth pushed to references/; every step gets a completion criterion. Done when: design fits the frontmatter schema and ≤200-line cap.
4. Eval first (§D). Write eval.md BEFORE the body: 3–7 executable checks (command + expected result) that define "works", plus one negative case. Run them now to confirm they FAIL pre-build (red). Done when: eval exists and is demonstrably red.
5. Implementation. Write SKILL.md + references + scripts in ~/.claude/skills/in-progress/<name>/. Restraint rules bind: no features beyond the spec, no premature abstraction, validate at boundaries only. Done when: files exist.
6. Security scan. python3 ~/.claude/skills/forge/scripts/scan.py <dir> — checks map to references/scan-checklist.md; emits ai-bom.json. FAIL ⇒ fix and rescan; a skill that cannot pass stays quarantined forever. Done when: scan exits 0, fresh, this turn.
7. Eval + smoke (§C). Run the phase-4 eval fresh — all green now; stamp each check via the estate evidence tool (evidence.py). If results vary across runs, note variance and tighten until stable. Done when: eval green with run-stamped artifacts.
8. Register (human-gated). Prepare — never execute — promotion: the catalogue lines (README + router row if entry-point), the git mv out of in-progress/, and the commit. Verify brain.js skills WOULD stay green (run it). Hand the human the exact commands. Done when: promotion pack handed over; skill still in quarantine.

Method references (read on demand)

• Eval-first discipline + variance analysis: references/eval-first.md
• Scan checklist ↔ OWASP mapping: references/scan-checklist.md

Write-back

One vault Outcome note per forged skill (what gap, what shipped, eval results, AI-BOM path). Provenance: every external pattern used is recorded in the AI-BOM by repo+commit.