Skill Router

Skill Router

Use this skill to choose the right installed skill or skill sequence without loading unnecessary context. It is a routing layer, not a replacement for the routed skill.

Core Rules

1. Begin non-trivial requests by consulting skill-router as a lightweight preflight to decide whether any installed skills apply. This means selecting a small skill set, not loading the full catalog.
2. If the user explicitly names a skill, use that skill for the relevant task section and do not override it with router selection unless a different, unspecified section still needs routing.
3. Prefer exact domain skills over broad design or planning skills.
4. For ambiguous, high-impact, or multi-step requests, route to clarify-and-plan first when assumptions, tradeoffs, or phase boundaries need to be made explicit. Then add the relevant domain skill.
5. For complex coding implementation on Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Antigravity, shared .agents, or local project agents, route to planning-first when the task spans multiple files, phases, migrations, refactors, or vague feature work. In Claude Code, prefer native /model opusplan or /ultraplan when available.
6. For "what am I missing?", architecture pressure tests, plan critiques, hidden assumptions, or consequential technical/product decisions, use what-should-i-consider. Pair with clarify-and-plan only when the user also needs options or a phased plan.
7. For security review, vulnerability audit, hardening, auth/authz, injection, XSS, RCE, secrets, data exposure, or supply-chain checks: on Claude Code prefer the native /security-review for explicit audits and PR/code reviews. When Claude Code's security-guidance plugin is installed, treat it as the preferred Claude-only preventative layer for generated-code warnings, diff/commit security feedback, and project-specific claude-security-guidance.md rules. On other agents use the portable security-review skill. Do not load Claude-native review commands and the portable skill for the same audit.
8. For React diagnostics, /doctor, React lint/code quality cleanup, bundle/code-health scans, or "diagnose React issues", use react-doctor. Keep it React-specific; use broader planning/design/security skills for non-React work.
9. For recent online/social/community research, current sentiment, trending repos, "what are people saying," or "last 30 days" requests, use last30days when installed. Treat paid/social sources as optional user-configured capabilities.
10. For Reddit-specific research, subreddit mining, Reddit sentiment, thread/comment analysis, or "what are people saying on Reddit" requests, use reddit-research. Pair with last30days for current/recent sentiment. Keep it low-volume, public-read-only, and honest about rate limits or blocks.
11. For local document references, PDFs, Office files, spreadsheets, presentations, HTML exports, CSV/data files, or ovd-workflow knowledge-vault ingest, use convert-to-markdown before reading native files when conversion would reduce context or preserve structure. Do not use it for code files or when visual layout fidelity is the task. For codebase relationship mapping, "how does this fit together?", "what connects X to Y?", or mixed code/docs corpus graph questions, use graphify when available. If a Graphify graph already exists in the project, prefer querying it before broad rg; if stale, recommend Graphify's own --watch or git-hook workflow. If Graphify is missing after installer setup or the user declines setup, fall back to normal repo exploration with rg, file reads, tests, and ovd-workflow state.
12. For questionnaire-style onboarding flows for web/mobile/subscription apps, use app-onboarding-questionnaire. Pair with design or frontend implementation skills only after the flow strategy is clear.
13. For launch readiness, shipping checklists, beta/public release, Product Hunt, App Store, SaaS launch, client handoff, monitoring, billing, privacy, or rollback preparation, use pre-launch-checklist. Pair with security-review, jack-seo-launch-audit, or marketing skills only for the relevant slice.
14. For prompt writing, prompt improvement, meta-prompts, reusable AI instructions, or "make this prompt better" requests, use prompt-master. Use clarify-and-plan when the actual project requirements are ambiguous; use prompt-master when the deliverable is the prompt itself.
15. For deep interrogation before a project starts, use grill-me/grilling or interview-me based on the user's desired style. Use grill-me/grilling when the user wants a hard challenge, many clarifying questions, or to pressure-test their own thinking before any plan is written. Use interview-me when they want a structured requirements interview that becomes a brief. Use clarify-and-plan after either one when the next deliverable is an implementation plan.
16. For engineering method choices, use Addy Osmani's engineering skills narrowly:

• doubt-driven-development when the user wants assumptions challenged, design risks exposed, or a plan stress-tested before implementation.
• source-driven-development when work must be grounded in existing source, docs, tests, or upstream references before coding.
• api-and-interface-design for module boundaries, API contracts, public interfaces, schema shape, and backwards compatibility.
• code-simplification for reducing complexity without behavior drift.
• documentation-and-adrs for ADRs, decision records, architecture docs, and durable technical documentation.
• performance-optimization for evidence-led profiling, bottleneck isolation, and optimization plans.
• test-driven-development when the user explicitly wants TDD or when a safe failing-test-first loop is the right implementation strategy.
• debugging-and-error-recovery for flaky failures, error-path design, and recovery-oriented debugging.

17. For autonomous or repeated research/experiment loops, distinguish:

• autoresearch-harness for setting up a safe, explicit-budget research or experiment harness inspired by Karpathy's autoresearch pattern.
• harness-engineering for designing robust evaluation harnesses and test loops.
• self-improvement-loops for controlled iterative improvement workflows. Do not run long or costly loops without explicit user approval.

18. For website cloning/rebuild requests, use clone-website-guide when the user wants to start from or be guided through the JCodesMore website-cloner template, or when cloning ethics/permission need to be made explicit. Use design-extract to extract design language from public/authorized URLs, and redesign-existing-projects when the user already has a codebase to redesign. Do not help with phishing, impersonation, credential collection, or brand misuse.
19. For launch/demo brag videos, use brag-video when the output is a launch video concept, demo storyboard, motion beat sheet, captions, or share copy. Pair with claude-video only when analyzing existing video footage; pair with launch only when the broader launch plan is in scope.
20. For factual claim checking, citation quality, or publication risk, use fact-checker. Pair with last30days for current/unstable claims, reddit-research for community claims, and official docs or primary sources when claims are technical, legal, medical, financial, or safety-relevant.
21. For official Anthropic example skills, route narrowly: algorithmic-art for generative visual/artifact sketches, canvas-design for canvas-based design artifacts, claude-api for Claude API usage, skill-creator for creating portable skills, web-artifacts-builder for web artifact construction, webapp-testing for web app testing, and theme-factory for reusable themes.
22. For Jack Roberts inspired premium 3D/scroll websites, route to the narrow Jack skill first, then add the normal design/web validation stack:

• jack-premium-site-system for the full brand -> asset prompts -> scroll site -> SEO -> optional launch workflow.
• jack-website-intelligence for brand extraction, competitor research, client-facing strategy, and build briefs.
• jack-scroll-asset-prompts for assembled/exploded, before/after, or transition prompts for AI image/video generators.
• jack-scroll-3d-sites for video-on-scroll, frame-sequence canvas, GSAP/Framer Motion/Three.js scroll experiences.
• jack-seo-launch-audit for multi-page SEO, metadata, structured data, responsive checks, and launch readiness.

23. For product-design layer reasoning, use Jamie Mill's Layers skills. Always include layers-intro before a layer-specific skill because it explains the framework dependency model.

• layers-orient when the user does not know where the product/design problem lives.
• layers-observed-behaviour for user behavior evidence, job-story candidates, and confidence.
• layers-domain for domain terminology, concept maps, nouns, and language conflicts.
• layers-user-needs for needs, pains, desires, and prioritised job stories.
• layers-product-strategy for opportunity selection, bets, and product/service strategy.
• layers-conceptual-model for objects, states, relationships, vocabulary, and product model coherence.
• layers-interaction-flow for flows, breadboards, edge cases, and open interaction decisions.
• layers-surface for surface decision inventory only after lower layers are reasonably clear.

24. For visual/frontend work, prefer the community design stack over generic design defaults:

• Taste skills by default for real design references, premium visual direction, anti-slop landing pages, image-first frontend workflows, brand kits, and stronger style variants.
• emil-design-eng by default for buttons, hover/focus states, transitions, animations, micro-interactions, easing, component feel, and UI that should not feel static.
• emil-animation-polish for practical Emil-inspired web animation implementation: CSS transitions, custom easing, duration tuning, press feedback, hover/touch behavior, tooltip timing, origin-aware popovers, and smooth animation audits.
• fluid-animations when motion needs Apple-quality direct manipulation: spring behavior, interruptibility, gesture velocity, rubberbanding, snap points, spatially consistent transitions, or reduced-motion-safe tactile UI.
  • liquid-glass-web when the user asks for Liquid Glass, frosted glass, glassmorphism, translucent UI, SVG displacement, or WebGL refraction. It should choose Tier 1 universal frosted glass by default and enhance to Tier 2 or Tier 3 only when target browsers and performance justify it.
  • pretext when the hard problem is text measurement/layout performance: virtualized variable-height text rows, shrinkwrapped chat bubbles, multiline measurement without DOM reflow, auto-growing textareas, label overflow checks, or Canvas/SVG/WebGL text.
  • design-extract when the user wants to extract colors, fonts, spacing, components, Tailwind/shadcn tokens, or a design language from a public website URL. Treat the tool as optional: Overdrive attempts browser setup during install, the agent checks availability first, and extraction stays limited to public/authorized pages.
• impeccable mostly as an end-of-development polish, audit, critique, spacing, and typography pass. Ask for user feedback before broad font, hierarchy, or visual-identity changes unless the user explicitly asks the agent to decide.
• Anthropic/Claude frontend-design only as fallback if the community stack fails, is unavailable, or the user rejects the direction.

25. Add implementation support skills only when the task needs them:

• modern-web-guidance for modern HTML/CSS/browser APIs, accessibility, forms, dialogs, popovers, performance, and Baseline compatibility.
• playwright-cli for official Playwright CLI browser validation, screenshots, snapshots, flows, data extraction, and debugging.
• playwright only as the pinned OpenAI wrapper/fallback when that specific wrapper is useful; otherwise prefer playwright-cli.

26. Use Context Engineering skills when context quality, compression, prompt-cache hygiene, multi-agent architecture, memory, tool design, long-thread continuity, or evaluation is the problem. context-optimization, context-compression, and clarify-and-plan are situational tools, not always-on skills; use context-compression only when the user asks for compaction or accepts a context-budget reminder.
27. Use Corey Haines marketing skills for SEO, CRO, copywriting, launches, pricing, ads, customer research, and growth strategy. Add stop-slop for public-facing prose and AI-tell cleanup. Use humanizer when the user gives existing text and asks to preserve meaning/facts while making it sound more natural, personal, or voice-matched; do not use it to fake authorship, fabricate lived experience, or remove required AI disclosure.
28. Use banana for image-generation requests when its Claude Code/Gemini setup is available. In runtimes without Banana/API setup, route to the native image tool or ask for setup.
29. Use Kepano's retained Obsidian-adjacent skills narrowly: json-canvas for JSON Canvas files and defuddle for clean web-to-markdown extraction when available. For broader Obsidian vault editing, proceed with normal Markdown/file tooling or ask the user to install a dedicated Obsidian workflow; snapshot real vaults before broad edits.
30. Use claude-video for understanding videos, screen recordings, product demos, visual regressions in recordings, or /watch-style analysis. Overdrive attempts non-privileged ffmpeg/yt-dlp setup during install; Whisper keys remain user-configured and must never be collected from chat. Use media-download for downloading or extracting media files, not for comprehension.
31. Use media-download for user-requested local media downloads, MP3 extraction, highest-quality MP4 downloads, or yt-dlp workflows. Respect platform terms and confirm permissions for restricted/copyrighted material.
32. Use Anthropic example skills for their narrow official domains:

• brand-guidelines only when Anthropic branding, colors, typography, or company style guidelines are explicitly requested or appropriate.
• doc-coauthoring for substantial docs, proposals, PRDs, RFCs, technical specs, and decision docs.
• mcp-builder for MCP server design, tool schemas, API/service integrations, and MCP evaluation. Use Context7/current docs for SDK specifics.
• slack-gif-creator for Slack-ready GIFs, animated emoji, and short workspace reaction loops. Approval-gate any actual Slack upload/post.

33. Use Composio/connect-style action skills reluctantly and only after explicit user approval before sending, posting, creating, deleting, authenticating, spending credits, or touching external accounts.
34. Treat MCPs/connectors as tools, not skills. The shareable kit only assumes Context7 for current documentation lookup; other MCPs are user/project-specific and should not be assumed.
35. Use Vercel Labs find-skills only when the user wants to discover, compare, or install new skills. Do not run broad skill discovery for normal implementation tasks.
36. Keep context small: route to the minimum sufficient skill sequence, state the order, and load only the reference needed for the conflict. Prefer stable, deterministic ordering: clarify/planning first, then product/domain reasoning, implementation, validation, launch/handoff, and context-management skills only when needed. There is no hard cap: genuinely complex tasks may use more skills when they are phased and each skill has a clear job.
37. If .overdrive/ exists and the runtime command is available, append a short route trace after choosing skills: overdrive route --skills "skill-a,skill-b" --reason "short reason". Skip this silently if the command is unavailable or the workflow folder is absent.

Resolving Trigger Overlap

• clarify-and-plan vs planning-first: use clarify-and-plan when the request is ambiguous or has meaningful options. Use planning-first when the direction is mostly clear but the implementation is complex. Use both in that order for broad "build/refactor this" requests.
• what-should-i-consider vs clarify-and-plan: use what-should-i-consider to attack assumptions, risks, and missing decisions. Use clarify-and-plan to turn ambiguity into options and a phase plan.
• planning-first vs domain skills: planning is the wrapper; the domain skill does the specialized work. Example: planning-first -> design-taste-frontend for a multi-page UI rebuild.
• security-guidance vs Claude native /security-review vs portable security-review: use Claude's security-guidance plugin as an always-on/preventative Claude-only layer when available; use Claude's native /security-review for explicit security audits and PR/code reviews; use the portable security-review skill for Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Antigravity, and shared .agents.
• react-doctor vs generic frontend/design skills: use react-doctor for React code quality diagnostics. Use Taste/Emil/Impeccable for visual/interaction quality and security-review for vulnerability review.
• layers-* vs clarify-and-plan/planning-first: use Layers for product-design substance: observed behavior, domain language, user needs, strategy, conceptual model, interaction flow, and surface decisions. Use planning skills for process, implementation phases, and execution discipline.
• layers-surface vs visual polish skills: use layers-surface to inventory surface-level product/design decisions. Use Taste, Emil, Impeccable, and liquid-glass-web for actual visual direction, motion, polish, and implementation.
• prompt-master vs clarify-and-plan: use prompt-master when the output is an improved AI prompt, reusable instruction, or prompt template. Use clarify-and-plan when the agent needs to clarify the actual product/code requirements before doing work.
• grill-me/grilling vs interview-me vs clarify-and-plan: use grill-me/grilling for aggressive idea interrogation and hidden-assumption surfacing before planning. Use interview-me for structured requirements gathering. Use clarify-and-plan when the next artifact is an implementation plan with options and phases.
• doubt-driven-development vs what-should-i-consider: use doubt-driven-development when the critique should feed an engineering workflow or code plan. Use what-should-i-consider for broader strategic, product, or architecture pressure tests.
• source-driven-development vs last30days/Context7: use source-driven-development to ground implementation in local source, tests, and cited docs. Use last30days for recent external sentiment and Context7 for current library/API documentation.
• humanizer vs stop-slop: use humanizer for preserving facts and meaning while adapting existing text to a human voice. Use stop-slop for broader AI-tell cleanup, punchier public prose, and generic writing removal.
• design-extract vs design-generation/polish skills: use design-extract to extract a design language from an existing public URL. Feed the findings into Taste/Impeccable/Emil when implementing or polishing a new UI.
• clone-website-guide vs design-extract/redesign-existing-projects: use clone-website-guide when the user explicitly wants a clone/rebuild workflow or a fresh JCodesMore template flow. Use design-extract for authorized design-language extraction from a URL. Use redesign-existing-projects when the user already has an app/codebase to improve rather than a fresh clone.
• brag-video vs launch/claude-video: use brag-video for launch/demo video storyboards and social-ready scripts. Use launch for the broader go-to-market plan. Use claude-video to understand or critique existing video footage.
• autoresearch-harness vs harness-engineering/self-improvement-loops: use autoresearch-harness for safe autonomous research-loop setup and guardrails. Use harness-engineering for eval/test harness design. Use self-improvement-loops for controlled iteration over an existing harness.
• fact-checker vs last30days/reddit-research: use fact-checker to verify claims and source quality. Add last30days for unstable current claims and reddit-research only when community/Reddit claims are part of the evidence.
• liquid-glass-web vs emil-animation-polish/fluid-animations: use liquid-glass-web for glass/refraction tier selection and implementation. Use Emil/Fluid for how it moves, responds, and feels.
• pretext vs design-generation/polish skills: use pretext for text layout math, measurement, virtualization, and reflow avoidance. Use Taste/Impeccable/Emil/Layers for visual direction, typography taste, product reasoning, and interaction polish.
• claude-video vs media-download: use claude-video to understand a video or screen recording. Use media-download when the requested action is saving, extracting, or downloading media.
• pre-launch-checklist vs jack-seo-launch-audit: use pre-launch-checklist for product/business readiness, monitoring, billing, privacy, rollback, support, and launch-day runbooks. Use jack-seo-launch-audit for animated/3D website SEO, metadata, structured data, performance, and responsive launch checks.
• last30days vs normal web search: use last30days for time-boxed community/recent sentiment research. Use normal web/docs search or Context7 for official documentation and exact API/library references.
• reddit-research vs last30days: use reddit-research when Reddit/subreddits/threads/comments are explicitly in scope. Add last30days when recency or broader community context matters.
• convert-to-markdown vs defuddle: use convert-to-markdown for local files and ovd-workflow knowledge-vault ingest. Use defuddle for web pages that need clean article/content extraction.
• graphify vs ovd-workflow knowledge vault: use graphify for on-demand queryable codebase or mixed-corpus relationship graphs. Prefer an existing Graphify graph before broad rg for relationship/orientation questions, but do not start a background indexer from Overdrive. Use ovd-workflow knowledge vault for local project reference docs, project memory, decisions, and indexed Markdown caches. Avoid routing both for the same request unless the user explicitly needs both code graph intelligence and local project-memory/reference-doc context.
• app-onboarding-questionnaire vs marketing onboarding/signup: use app-onboarding-questionnaire for questionnaire-style app onboarding flows and screen-by-screen strategy. Use marketing onboarding or signup for growth optimization of existing onboarding/signup funnels.
• find-skills vs skill-router: use skill-router to choose among installed skills. Use find-skills only to discover or install new skills.

Reference Routing

• Read references/frontend-design-routing.md for frontend, product UI, landing page, brand, motion, image-first, or visual-quality conflicts.
• Read references/compatibility-audit.md for source, platform, overlap, context-bloat, and approval-risk notes.
• Read references/sharing-and-transfer.md when asked how to move this setup to another machine or teammate.
• Read references/catalog.md for broad inventory, non-design routing, or when the user asks what every skill is for.
• Read references/routing-trace-examples.md for example prompts and expected routing decisions. The examples also show how ovd-workflow route traces should stay short enough for .overdrive/routes.jsonl.

Output Pattern

When routing is the main task, answer with:

Recommended skill(s): <skill names in order>
Why: <one concise rationale>
Use now: <which skill should be loaded/invoked first>
Notes: <optional caveat about secondary skills or validation>

When routing is only a setup step before doing work, briefly name the chosen skill sequence, then proceed with the task using the relevant skill instructions.

Planning-time vs execution-time routing (ovd-plan protocol)

When invoked from ovd-plan during planning (the RESOLVE SKILLS sub-step of /ovd-plan Stage 5), end your response with a single JSON object on the last line — no fence, no trailing prose after it:

{"skills":["..."],"confidence":"high|medium|low","rationale":"...","considered":["..."]}

Confidence semantics:

• high — narrow scope + clear success criteria + well-understood domain + applicable codebase patterns. Execution uses this prior as canonical; do not reconsult the router for that leaf.
• medium — moderate scope or one input is partial. Execution treats the prior as the starting set and may add 1-2 skills only on observed need; additions are captured as skill-delta to the session log under .overdrive/sessions/.
• low — experimental, novel, or broad scope. Execution re-invokes the helper with current context and writes the result back to the leaf annotation as a delta.

When the active leaf in OVERDRIVE.md already has a pre-resolved skills: annotation with confidence: high, do NOT reconsult the router for that leaf — load the named skills and execute. Reconsult only if the agent observes a need outside the prior set during execution.

When confidence: medium, treat the prior as the starting set and add 1-2 more skills only on observed need. Capture additions as skill-delta to the session log.

When confidence: low or the annotation is missing, perform full routing per the rules above and capture the result back to the leaf annotation as a delta.

Hard Avoids

• Do not load the full catalog for every task.
• Do not make router output noisy for tiny tasks; the default skill-router preflight can be silent when no skill applies.
• Do not choose generic/Anthropic-style design guidance ahead of Taste skills, emil-design-eng, or impeccable for visual taste unless the user explicitly requests it.
• Do not let impeccable make broad font/hierarchy/identity changes without user feedback unless the user explicitly asks the agent to decide.
• Do not use full-output-enforcement unless the user needs complete unabridged output or previous output was truncated.
• Do not use external action skills without approval.
• Do not assume a shared setup includes MCP credentials, OAuth state, API keys, or personal connector sessions.