Pattern Mining

Pattern Mining

Decide whether repeated code demonstrates a reusable rule or only a plausible hypothesis. Similar names and syntax are not enough; the abstraction must survive examples it was not designed around.

Workflow

1. State the candidate pattern and collect independently implemented exemplars with repository anchors. Use research when coverage is unclear.
2. From the exemplars, separate required invariants, legitimate variation points, and incidental similarity.
3. Require at least three distinct exemplars before promotion is possible. Form the candidate abstraction without using the holdout.
4. Test it against every exemplar, then a separate holdout. Back-apply the refined abstraction to the original exemplars so the holdout fix cannot silently break them.
5. Emit outcome: promote only when the exemplar floor, holdout, and back-application all pass. Route that evidence to operationalize, which decides whether the eventual shape is a skill, gate, library, template, or no action.
6. Otherwise emit outcome: hypothesis with route: no-action. Keep the evidence bounded and name what additional observation would retest it.

skills/pattern-mining/scripts/validate-output.sh <pattern.json>

This skill owns evidence for the pattern. It never creates the reusable artifact itself and never promotes a failed or untested holdout.

Executable behavior: references/pattern-mining.feature.

Do not

• Count copies from one implementation lineage as independent exemplars.
• Hide variation by calling it incidental.
• Route a hypothesis directly to a skill, rule, gate, or library.