Ra1 Interview

Agent Readiness Interview

A readiness scan reports unknown when it lacks an input, not when a repository is bad. This skill closes that distance: it asks the developer the questions the engine cannot answer, records each answer where the engine reads it, and re-scores so the change in the number comes from re-evaluation rather than from anyone's opinion.

The engine owns every verdict. You collect inputs. An answer can make a criterion evaluable or exclude it with a disclosed waiver; an answer can never mark one passing.

Steps

<skill-dir> in the commands below is this skill's own directory: the absolute path your runtime reports when it loads the skill. Substitute it. Do not write $(dirname "$0") — in a shell tool call $0 is the shell, not this file, so that form resolves against the caller's working directory.

1. List the gaps

python3 -I "<skill-dir>/scripts/readiness/cli.py" gaps \
  --project . --format json

Each gap carries exactly gap_id, kind, question, why, recordable, input_kind (single_choice | multi_choice | integer | unrecordable), choices (opaque ids with display-only labels and effects record | external_action | leave_unanswered), value (null, or the CI-budget integer spec), blocked_ids, blocked_gating, levels, and evidence. The list is already ordered by leverage: the first gap blocks the gate the reader is trying to clear. IDs and choices are engine constants; copy them into argv verbatim — never question/evidence/user prose.

Done when: you have the gap list. Empty list → tell the user every input was inferable and stop; there is nothing to interview about.

2. Frame the question from the gap payload only

For every gap, form the question strictly from question, why, bounded evidence, the blocker/Level counts, and the display-only choices labels — see reference/questions.md. You do not inspect repository files to derive a recommendation, and you never construct a value the engine did not emit.

Done when: each gap has one four-line question with its stake and its recordable choices, or an explicit leave_unanswered decision.

3. Interview, one question at a time

Ask one question, wait for the answer, then ask the next. Order follows the gap list, with one exception: ask a question whose answer changes later questions first (project type before anything scoped to an application).

Each question states, in this order: the question, what answering it unblocks (blocked_gating and levels), and the accepted choices labels verbatim, framed as an explicit record-or-leave-unanswered decision.

Read reference/questions.md for the wording rules per gap kind and for what to do with a vague, "I don't know", or contradictory answer.

Done when: every gap has an answer, an explicit "leave it unanswered", or a waiver decision — and you asked no question the codebase had already answered.

4. Plan exactly one answer; apply only on explicit current-turn confirmation

For one current gap, plan exactly one of:

python3 -I "<skill-dir>/scripts/readiness/cli.py" answer --project . \
  --gap-id <canonical-gap-id> --choice <canonical-choice-id> --format json
python3 -I "<skill-dir>/scripts/readiness/cli.py" answer --project . \
  --gap-id config.ci_budget_minutes --minutes <1..1440> --format json

Repeated --choice is allowed only for the current multi-enum surfaces gap. IDs/choices must be copied from the just-returned canonical payload. Only when the developer's current turn explicitly selects recording do you repeat the exact plan command with fixed --apply.

The engine reacquires the live root, requires clean/known Git and a complete T0/T1 baseline, rederives the gap and its internal .ra1 policy mapping, performs one bounded create/merge on .ra1/config.json or .ra1/waivers.json, rescans with the same offline scope, and emits the canonical answer_contract. You never read, write, or merge policy files directly, never pass a free-form waiver reason, owner, or expiry, and never append provenance suffixes.

Done when: you present the answer_contract verbatim, state plainly that recording is not credit (the engine re-scores; the answer can expose failures or lower the Level), and never call an unchanged/unresolved criterion fixed.

5. Report the verified outcome honestly

Present the answer_contract's own verification: the recorded write, gap_resolved, the status_changes (including unknown → fail — that is the interview working, not failing), waived_ids, remaining gaps, and the before/after score copied verbatim from the contract. Generating or storing a subsequent full report remains a separate explicit ra1 report invocation, not an automatic post-answer step.

Done when: you have stated the before/after score from the contract, listed the status changes, and named the remaining gaps.

Contract (do not violate)

• Never write a status, a score, or a pass. The engine writes verdicts from the recorded input.
• Never write, read, or merge policy files directly. Only ra1 answer mutates .ra1/config.json or .ra1/waivers.json, and only with exact engine-authored ids.
• Never waive what the scanner looked for and did not find. Waivers exist only for the capability.github gap's github.non_github_host choice, which excludes the gap's exact blocked ids with no free-form reason.
• Never execute an external_action (such as github.restore_access); ask whether the developer will do it, and re-scan on a later explicit request.
• Never pin a project type to raise a number. Pin what the repository is. If the honest type makes more criteria fail, that is the correct outcome.
• Never ask a question outside the gap payload — you may not inspect repository files to derive an answer.
• Never batch questions. One at a time, because a batched answer to five questions is reliably vaguer than five answers.
• Never claim the score improved because of an answer. It improved because the engine re-evaluated, or it did not improve at all.

Notes

• No gaps but criteria still unknown? Those are agent judgments (judgment.*), which are advisory and belong to the ra1-report skill's T4 section, not to this interview.
• To act on findings rather than inputs, hand off to ra1-fix (the Loadout).
• Gaps are advisory output derived after scoring. Listing them, or leaving one unanswered, cannot change a level.