# Freeze > Use when a pipeline stage or the human meets facts that live outside the repo — a service, database, queue, third party, or live logs — and the work depends on their current state. Triggers on "what's the state of", "check prod", "is the service returning", "snapshot the data", external-system dependencies. Repo-local work skips it. - Skill: `majiayu000/freeze` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add majiayu000/freeze` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/majiayu000/freeze/raw - Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS) - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: DevOps & Infra - Author: majiayu000 (https://skillmd.com/u/majiayu000) - Updated: 2026-09-09 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/majiayu000/freeze --- Freeze the moving cross-boundary state a system depends on into one immutable snapshot. The consumer is the agent stages (intent / shape / delegate / builder), not the human's memory — grounding, not narration. ## Contract - **INPUT** — a system to ground AND the work order (intent) that scopes which external facts matter. Doubly scoped: only the slice of the world this work order touches, never a general map. - **GATE** — "Is the snapshot factual and complete — every required fact observed, or an explicit gap?" Agent audits, user locks. - **OUTPUT** — a snapshot VALUE, emitted in conversation. Stateless: nothing persisted. Re-run to refresh. ## Observed-or-gap, never inference A fact's VALUE is OBSERVED or it is a GAP. There is no third path. - **Inference builds the source map only** — reasoning enumerates WHICH facts this system + intent depends on. It never produces a fact's value. - **A value is observed** — a read-only acquisition agent sees it live, or the human retrieves it by hand. - WRONG: infer a value from a config file, a stale doc, or "it's probably still X" and write it as a fact. - RIGHT: unreachable fact → an OPEN gap with retrieval instructions, never a fabricated value. The outcome is a uniformly factual snapshot: every line is something observed, or something named as missing. ## The snapshot Two parts. Facts append; the belief derives. - **OBSERVED facts** — each `{ source, claim, where-it-lives, as-of, observed-by }`. - **OPEN gaps** — each `{ required-fact, why-needed, where-to-look, how-to-retrieve }`. - **Derived view** — any map / belief over the facts is a VIEW, marked as derived, never mixed into the observed set. A consuming stage sees a complete factual picture or exactly which facts are still missing. ## The work loop 1. **Scope** — from the system + intent, infer the source map: the set of external facts this work order depends on. This is the only place inference runs. 2. **Acquire** — fan out read-only acquisition agents in parallel, one observation per fact, live. The skill spawns and folds; it never does the reads itself. 3. **Fold** — assemble each return into an OBSERVED fact. Anything unobserved becomes an OPEN gap with its retrieval instructions. 4. **Gap-fill** — surface gaps for the human to hand-retrieve; re-fold each return. Re-check. The loop terminates when no gaps remain OR the human stops. 5. **Gate** — run the gate audit (below). ## Acquisition is delegation-shaped The skill is a router: it spawns acquisition agents and folds their returns. It does not read external systems directly — same law as delegate's "router does no work". - **READ-ONLY is a hard guard** — acquisition agents observe, never mutate. No write, no POST that changes state, no migration, no toggle. An agent that would mutate an external system is the wrong tool; stop and make it a gap for the human. - **Parallel by default** — independent facts go out as parallel agent calls in one message. - **Self-contained prompts** — each agent gets the one fact to observe, where it lives, and the read-only constraint. ## Decision prompts - Auto-gather when the answer is retrievable with certainty: cheap local reads, docs, web research, parallel subagents. Return with decisions, not raw findings. Never ask the user something research already made obvious — that is a named stop condition. - Only non-obvious judgment calls reach the user. Every such AskUserQuestion: exactly 3 candidate answers + 1 uniform escape hatch — "Gather facts" (research/explore). The hatch is a first-class option, never hidden behind Other. - Re-entry after a detour: if the detour made the answer obvious, state the decision and proceed; otherwise re-ask the same question with the new evidence inside the prompt. - Presentation rule: EVERYTHING the user needs to answer lives inside the question UI — question text, descriptions, previews. Never in prose before the tool call (the dialog hides it). ## The gate "Is the snapshot factual and complete?" Agent audits, user locks. - **Factual pass** — every OBSERVED fact traces to an observation (an agent return or a human hand-retrieval). Any value reached by inference is a defect: demote it to an OPEN gap or re-acquire it. - **Completeness pass** — every fact in the source map is either OBSERVED or an OPEN gap. A required fact that is silently absent is the failure mode; name it as a gap. - Present verdict-FIRST via AskUserQuestion: PASSES or FAILS, then the observed count and the open gaps — proof both passes ran. - On FAIL: name exactly which facts are inferred or missing. Never fabricate a value to close a gap. - The user locks. The lock is theirs, not yours. ## Convergence The gap-fill cycle (observe → surface gaps → human hand-retrieves → re-fold → recheck) is human-gated, not autonomous. It has no metric and no unsupervised run, so it does NOT pass through target. It ends when gaps are closed or the human stops — a snapshot with named open gaps is a valid lock. ## Boundaries - **On-demand, not mandatory** — any stage invokes freeze when it meets outside-the-repo facts. It is not a pre-intent stage; repo-local work skips it entirely. - **freeze vs over** — freeze is world→pipeline grounding: acquire external facts, feed the agent stages. over is output→human handoff. Complements, never folded together.