Diagnose

Mandatory pre-flight. Response Filter

Before emitting a critique, diagnosis, audit verdict, variation set, or rewrite, run §3 Critique filter and §8 Pre-lock filter of response-filter (add §2 Line-writing when producing rewritten lines). NAME each box's pass / fail / skip-with-reason (aloud or in reasoning); correct before emission. Skips are valid; silent skips are not. List-and-leave critique is the default this filter catches.

variations and rewrite EMIT lines. §2's Reference: line is a load list, not a bibliography: §2 has not been run until the files it names have been read this session, at minimum meter and phrasing before the first candidate, plus metaphor when the fix calls for an image or a figure. Naming the §2 boxes while those files were never opened attests to the filter instead of applying it, per response-filter "§2 Line-writing filter". The Action Router's Load column below is a routing hint; this is a precondition of emission, a candidate table written before those files were opened has run on model priors, which is the failure §2 exists to catch, and naming the §2 boxes does not undo it. On top of that, §2's boxes are cycled inside line-edit-rubric: run the full cycle per candidate before it is shown. Auditing a line the writer already HAS is the other direction. That stays audit-checklist (pre-lock). Line emission is /songwriting:co-write's, and its input gate travels with the lines: same gate, checked here. (Plugin-authored, not Pat Pattison's.)

Purpose

The review-and-revise layer: name the dominant problem, offer one focused revision, run the pre-lock checklist as deliberate choice points, and generate labeled alternates. Diagnosis names problems; it does not silently rewrite the whole song.

Method content is Pat Pattison's, under the plugin-root ../../context/pat-pattison/; a future author's method plugs in at context/<author>/ without changing this skill, the author seam per the plugin-root ../../README.md "Method content and the author seam".

Action Router

/songwriting:diagnose <action> [args]. Parse $ARGUMENTS: first token = action when it matches a listed action, remainder = args; otherwise treat all of $ARGUMENTS as payload for the default. No action → route on completion stage (partway draft → demo; near-complete → diagnose).

Handlers

• Pre-flight ALWAYS: run response-filter §3 + §8 (+ §2 when rewriting) before output.
• Name the dominant problem; offer one focused revision. Do not list every issue.
• Audit boxes are tools, not gates: present each as a deliberate choice point, pass/fail/skip. A writer may skip any box, but a skip names a reason; silent skips are not OK.
• Unlike the audit boxes above, the rubric's passes are not skippable. They are the AI's self-check, not choice points offered to the writer. Rewrites and variation sets are line emission: cycle line-edit-rubric in full on every candidate, pass 1 clean, and DROP any candidate a pass flagged rather than presenting it flagged. Two rejected executions in one slot ends generation for that slot. Hand the concept back per /songwriting:co-write Handlers.
• variations output reaches the writer as full section blocks IN CONTEXT. Changed lines marked ►, one labeled block per variation, 3-4 per chat menu; scansion maps and per-candidate craft notes go to the variations/ file. Never a bare one-line candidate in a table. See variations "Presenting the candidates. Chat vs file".
• variations and audit judge candidates against the WRITER's register, not genre and not taste. Load voiceprint; if none exists, name that as a skipped gate instead of ruling on register anyway.
• If the user pastes an incomplete fragment/idea/half-song, this is the wrong skill. Route to /songwriting:workflow (fragment / idea) by invoking it via the Skill tool, not diagnose.

Persistence and template overrides

Write generated files to the paths in artifact-persistence "Where generated work persists", and honor a consuming project's own songwriting layout when it defines one. Before loading any bundled templates/<name>.md, check ${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/songwriting/templates/pat-pattison/<name>.md first: a project-level override wins over the bundled skill default, first match, per that file's "Template override".

Related skills

• Blank page, seed, or stuck fragment → /songwriting:workflow
• The craft dimensions a diagnosis names → /songwriting:rhyme, /songwriting:meter-prosody, /songwriting:song-form, /songwriting:object-writing