Avoiding Manufactured Work
Detect follow-up work that exists because the agent wanted to keep helping, not because a real consumer asked for it.
Sibling skill
Pair this with the front-gate-before-pipeline pattern. Front-gate fires before work begins; this skill fires after work appears done. Same root cause (skipping self-evaluation under reward bias), opposite timing.
Triggers
is this work manufactured, does this follow-up have a consumer, classify this post-completion finding, should I file this follow-up
Process
- Name the concrete work product under review.
- Identify the consumer: user, issue, acceptance criterion, failing check, reviewer thread, or blocked downstream decision.
- If no consumer exists, stop. Do not create a task, issue, PR, memo, or research artifact.
- If a consumer exists, verify the proposed follow-up is the smallest action that unblocks that consumer.
- Report the disposition as one of: keep, shrink, defer, or delete.
Decision Rules
- Keep work that directly satisfies an acceptance criterion, fixes a failing required check, resolves a reviewer thread, or unblocks a named decision.
- Shrink work when the demand is real but the proposed scope exceeds what the consumer needs.
- Defer work when the demand is plausible but no current consumer is blocked.
- Delete work when it is speculative, reputational, performative, or created to make the agent appear thorough.
Output
Return:
Disposition: keep | shrink | defer | delete
Consumer: <named consumer or none>
Reason: <one sentence>
Next action: <smallest action, or none>
Disposition Procedure for Post-Completion Findings
The builder-ethos rule, section ## 4. Task Completion Contract, owns the completion contract (directory prefix omitted on purpose: this skill ships in the plugin mirrors, where a .claude/rules/ path dangles; look the rule up by name in whichever instruction tree you are reading, builder-ethos.md under .claude/rules/ or builder-ethos.instructions.md under the instructions trees): forming it, precedence, the terminal predicate, and reactivation. Read that section for any of those. Its ### Finding disposition subsection delegates exactly one step to this skill, verbatim:
Every post-satisfaction finding is one of four classes; classify it with the avoiding-manufactured-work skill's disposition procedure, not a second doctrine.
This section is that procedure. It maps each class onto the keep/shrink/defer/delete dispositions above so a finding raised after the task is terminal gets one named outcome instead of a judgment call. Read the class definitions in ### Finding disposition; this table adds only the outcome, so there is no second copy of the definitions to drift.
| Class |
Disposition |
| Blocker |
keep, scoped to the falsified criterion |
| Requested improvement |
keep, or shrink to the smallest action that satisfies it |
| Optional enhancement |
defer |
| Side quest |
delete |
Test the Blocker class first. A finding that falsifies mandatory safety or repository policy is a Blocker whether or not it sits inside the requested objective, so it never reaches the Side quest row and never maps to delete. Classify in table order: Blocker, then Requested improvement, then Optional enhancement, then Side quest.
A defer or a delete is a disposition, not a silent drop. Name the finding and its class in the report, then stop. Naming it is not a reason to reopen the task; only ### Reactivation in that same builder-ethos rule can do that.
Checklist
1---2name: avoiding-manufactured-work3description: Detect and stop manufactured work after a deliverable appears done, and classify a post-completion finding into the four contract classes builder-ethos.md delegates here. Use when a worker has produced a plan, issue, PR, backlog item, research artifact, or follow-up task and you need to verify it was demanded by a real user, acceptance criterion, or blocked decision instead of reward-seeking activity.4license: MIT5---67# Avoiding Manufactured Work89Detect follow-up work that exists because the agent wanted to keep helping, not because a real consumer asked for it.1011## Sibling skill1213Pair this with the `front-gate-before-pipeline` pattern. Front-gate fires before work begins; this skill fires after work appears done. Same root cause (skipping self-evaluation under reward bias), opposite timing.1415## Triggers1617`is this work manufactured`, `does this follow-up have a consumer`, `classify this post-completion finding`, `should I file this follow-up`1819## Process20211. Name the concrete work product under review.222. Identify the consumer: user, issue, acceptance criterion, failing check, reviewer thread, or blocked downstream decision.233. If no consumer exists, stop. Do not create a task, issue, PR, memo, or research artifact.244. If a consumer exists, verify the proposed follow-up is the smallest action that unblocks that consumer.255. Report the disposition as one of: keep, shrink, defer, or delete.2627## Decision Rules2829- Keep work that directly satisfies an acceptance criterion, fixes a failing required check, resolves a reviewer thread, or unblocks a named decision.30- Shrink work when the demand is real but the proposed scope exceeds what the consumer needs.31- Defer work when the demand is plausible but no current consumer is blocked.32- Delete work when it is speculative, reputational, performative, or created to make the agent appear thorough.3334## Output3536Return:3738```text39Disposition: keep | shrink | defer | delete40Consumer: <named consumer or none>41Reason: <one sentence>42Next action: <smallest action, or none>43```4445## Disposition Procedure for Post-Completion Findings4647The builder-ethos rule, section `## 4. Task Completion Contract`, owns the completion contract (directory prefix omitted on purpose: this skill ships in the plugin mirrors, where a `.claude/rules/` path dangles; look the rule up by name in whichever instruction tree you are reading, `builder-ethos.md` under `.claude/rules/` or `builder-ethos.instructions.md` under the instructions trees): forming it, precedence, the terminal predicate, and reactivation. Read that section for any of those. Its `### Finding disposition` subsection delegates exactly one step to this skill, verbatim:4849> Every post-satisfaction finding is one of four classes; classify it with the `avoiding-manufactured-work` skill's disposition procedure, not a second doctrine.5051This section is that procedure. It maps each class onto the keep/shrink/defer/delete dispositions above so a finding raised after the task is terminal gets one named outcome instead of a judgment call. Read the class definitions in `### Finding disposition`; this table adds only the outcome, so there is no second copy of the definitions to drift.5253| Class | Disposition |54|---|---|55| Blocker | keep, scoped to the falsified criterion |56| Requested improvement | keep, or shrink to the smallest action that satisfies it |57| Optional enhancement | defer |58| Side quest | delete |5960Test the Blocker class first. A finding that falsifies mandatory safety or repository policy is a Blocker whether or not it sits inside the requested objective, so it never reaches the Side quest row and never maps to delete. Classify in table order: Blocker, then Requested improvement, then Optional enhancement, then Side quest.6162A defer or a delete is a disposition, not a silent drop. Name the finding and its class in the report, then stop. Naming it is not a reason to reopen the task; only `### Reactivation` in that same builder-ethos rule can do that.6364## Checklist6566- [ ] The work product is named concretely, not as a category.67- [ ] A consumer is named, or the disposition is delete.68- [ ] The proposed action is the smallest one that unblocks that consumer.69- [ ] Any post-completion finding was tested against Blocker first.70- [ ] Every finding reached a stated disposition; none was dropped silently.
rjmurillo