Insight Cross Examine

/insight-cross-examine

Given a subject or a set of subjects, cross-examine routes by context to the right depth, discovers the angles and connections not yet visible, runs the insight battery (/insight-critique → /insight-assess, plus /insight-explore, plus hybrid synthesis), and hands back a decision surface — a recommendation over the items and viable hybrids, plus the insight trail that produced it. Its thesis: route → discover angles → expose connections → assess → recommend. It surfaces the decision either as an ask-gate (fired standalone) or inline (fired as a sub-step), and never auto-dives into expensive analysis without the handler's consent.

Structured execution spec: protocol.yon. Read it for the canonical rules and step sequence; this file is explanation. The two must stay in sync — if you edit one, update the other and refresh the @STAMP date.

Gate 0 — Stop-first (before any heavy processing)

A cheap pre-flight that runs before the router and before any sub-skill fires, so a 500-item set or a mis-aimed invocation never triggers the battery. It is an escalation warning, not a hard stop — warn the handler, then proceed if they override.

Warn + escalate to the handler when:

• Over-large corpus — a set beyond ~8–10 items, or a subject whose source-gathering would blow a normal read budget. Name the size; offer sampling / fan-out.
• Ill-fit — the subject isn't a decision/evaluation target. Redirect instead of grinding: factual lookup → /investigate; question-quality → /ask-gate; pure divergence with no evaluation → /insight-explore; "just surface angles/connections, no decision" → /insight-angles.
• Unframeable — no coherent subject to route.

State the reason and the suggested alternative, then let the handler decide. If pressed ("do it anyway"), proceed best-effort (with sampling/fan-out for the over-large case). The number is guidance for the warning, not a wall.

Phase 0 — Contextual router (Form × Corpus → depth)

Classify two axes, then read the depth level off the matrix. The output is a level on a graduated depth dial — so a rich single subject gets a light touch and an open question gets discovery-first. Every phase below, including Angle Discovery, scales to this level.

• Form — single · comparison (A vs B) · list (small ≤~5) · set (large >~5) · open-question (no candidates yet)
• Corpus — over-large · thin · adequate · rich

Depth dial:

• L0 — refuse/escalate (Gate 0; overridable)
• L1 — light: one quick assess; Angle Discovery skipped or one line; no explore/hybrids
• L2 — standard: brief Angle Discovery → critique → assess
• L3 — expanded: full Angle Discovery → critique → assess → explore → re-assess
• L4 — comparative: full Angle Discovery → per-item critique+assess + typed hybrids
• L5 — deep: re-assess loops, adversarial, fan-out — never auto; HIL-gated

Phase 1 — Angle Discovery (depth-scaled, depth-guarded)

Before assessment hardens around the known options, surface what isn't yet visible. Orchestrate /insight-angles inline under the depth-1 CX-RESOLVED marker — do not reimplement a parallel angle engine. Scale it to the depth level: L1 skips it (or one line "any unseen frame? — no"); L2 brief; L3+ full.

/insight-angles returns: frames (other ways to read the subject) · latent-connections (surprising links between items/concepts/constraints/goals) · missing-angles (perspectives not represented) · hidden-assumptions (claims the current framing rests on) · candidate-expansions (new options/hybrids worth assessing) · second-order effects.

Feed candidate-expansions into the option set so critique/assess evaluate them too. For an open-question form, Angle Discovery's candidate-expansions are the initial candidates — don't double-run a separate explore.

Phase 2 — Run the battery (depth-driven, depth-guarded)

Run the sub-skills the level calls for, all inline under CX-RESOLVED so they skip their own NSP/SIP/gate surfacing and return raw findings — you own the single final presentation.

• L1 — one quick /insight-assess.
• L2 — /insight-critique then /insight-assess.
• L3 — L2, then /insight-explore to expand, then re-assess the expanded set.

Avoid premature closure. Run a light explore/angle pass before hardening the recommendation when any of: the handler says they're exploring angles; the subject is high-ambiguity; or the first critique/assess converges suspiciously fast — concretely, all options score in one band and critique surfaced zero High/Medium risks and explore hasn't run yet. Exploration is not only a thin-input fallback; it's the guard against closing too early.

Phase 3 — Sets & typed hybrids

For comparison / list / set forms (or any post-discovery space with ≥2 combinable elements):

1. Per-item — critique+assess each item with the same dimensions. For a large set, offer fan-out — never auto-spawn (token burn → HIL consent).

2. Typed hybrid synthesis — find coherent combinations and classify why each exists:

   • complementary — A covers B's weakness
   • sequential — A unlocks B later
   • layered — A handles strategy, B handles implementation
   • reframed — A and B imply a better C
   • constraint-splitting — use A under one condition, B under another

   Hybrids are first-class options alongside the individuals. Surface at most 3; log-and-truncate the rest. Don't manufacture hybrids just to fill type categories.

Phase 4 — Coverage check (adaptive critic)

Before the recommendation, run a brief completeness pass: from the relevant angle menu — practical · strategic · adversarial · human · systems/second-order · opportunity · failure-mode — select the angles that fit this subject and state which were covered and which were intentionally skipped, with the reason. This is an adaptive critic, not a fixed all-green checklist — the honest "we did not look at X because Y" is the deliverable. It helps detect incompleteness when you can't yet name what feels missing.

Depth escalation — HIL-gated, never auto

Going beyond the cap (>3 hybrids), L4→L5, fan-out on a large set, or extra re-assess loops are explicit offers, never auto-executed: "Want me to go deeper / examine more hybrids / fan out across the set?" — state the rough token cost and wait.

Phase 5 — Present (gate or inline, orthogonal to depth)

Mode is decided by fire-context, independent of the depth level:

• Standalone user call → gate: form the decision question and hand it to /ask-gate (AGP). Keep the gate question lean — options + recommendation only; the insight trail goes in the surrounding prose, not stuffed into the AskUserQuestion fields.
• Sub-step / agent caller / a *-RESOLVED marker present → inline: return the full decision surface as a structured block.
• Override — --gate / --inline forces a mode.

Decision surface carries: the committed recommendation; the top 2–3 alternatives; and — always — the assumption most likely to be wrong and what would change the recommendation. At L3+ it also carries the strongest unseen angle discovered and the most important connection found, plus an optional "go deeper?" offer when (and only when) it would add value. Lighter passes (L1/L2) keep the trail short.

Constraints

• Advisory / read-only — never make changes, write code, or execute. Offer /plan-create as the successor that does.
• Angle Discovery orchestrates /insight-angles — never reimplement a parallel angle engine inside this skill.
• Depth-scale every phase, Angle Discovery included — never run heavy discovery/coverage on an L1 case.
• Never auto-dive past the cap or into L5 / fan-out without explicit handler consent.
• Final output must surface at least one connection or unseen angle, or explicitly state none was found — never silently omit.
• Always deliver a committed recommendation; cap hybrids at 3 and log truncation.
• Ground the whole artifact, not the named slice. When the subject is a decision about a multi-file artifact — a dual-doc skill (front-matter + SKILL.md + protocol.yon), or any file with siblings — enumerate and read all its constituent files before concluding. The prompt often names only a subset, and a partial read can flip the verdict; treat "which files compose this subject, and have I read them all?" as a hidden-assumption check in Phase 1.

Boundary

• /insight-angles — the angle/connection/assumption engine cross-examine orchestrates in Phase 1. Reach for it directly to surface angles & connections without making a decision.
• /insight-critique, /insight-assess, /insight-explore — the single-purpose tools cross-examine orchestrates. Use one directly for exactly that one pass on one subject.
• /ask-gate — governs the question asked of the handler; cross-examine governs the subject, then hands its formed question to ask-gate for the gate path.
• /plan-deep-dive — phase-by-phase inspection of an existing plan; cross-examine routes-and-evaluates an arbitrary subject or set.

Human output. This skill's handler-facing output obeys the human-output contract (human-output/SKILL.md).

Next skills. On completion, run the Next Skills protocol (next-skills/SKILL.md): surface the next-skills recommendations from front-matter for the caller to pick. Offer only — never auto-invoke.

Self-improvement. On completion, run the Self-Improvement Protocol (self-improve/SKILL.md): if this run surfaced a concrete, blocking-or-recurring weakness in this skill, propose a specific fix for the handler to approve. Conservative — silent otherwise. Never auto-apply.