snappy-go (outcome-gate spec)

Historical eval bucket for the directive-tick cron driver. The live invocation skill is state/skills/go.md (the multi-agent /snappy-go command). This page owns the per-tick outcome-gate that scores every directive tick and the audit trail behind it.

Originally reclaimed as a dormant ghost by state/bin/orphan-audit/fix.ts on 2026-04-18 (20 historical rows had no doc). Resurrected the same day by Pod X to anchor the outcome-gate fix to Pod K's audit (commit ae19fee).

Why this page exists

Pod K's audit found that every directive tick was scoring 1.0 in state/log/evals.ndjson simply because claude -p exited 0 - a participation trophy. A tick that ran for 20 minutes producing nothing got the same score as a tick that closed three p0 frictions and shipped two commits. The eval log was lying to the PID loop.

The fix is in state/bin/agents/tick.sh. This page is the spec.

Eval

Shape-gate at invocation lives in state/skills/go.md (verb: "set"). That gate validates the agent file was created correctly. Unchanged.

Outcome-gate per tick is implemented in state/bin/agents/tick.sh around the claude -p call (verb: "tick", skill: "agent-<id>"). For every tick the driver:

1. Snapshots git rev-parse HEAD and the count of distinct OPEN p0/p1

areas in state/log/breakage-report.ndjson (latest-row-per-area wins, status == "open", sev ∈ {p0, p1}) before the tick.

1. Runs the claude -p subprocess with the directive prompt.
2. Re-snapshots both values after the subprocess returns.
3. Scores the row using:

COMMITS is the delta of git rev-list --count HEAD across the tick (positive = HEAD advanced). OPEN_DELTA is OPEN_BEFORE - OPEN_AFTER (positive = frictions closed).

Each eval row carries the full forensic payload so the PID loop and any auditor can re-derive the score:

{"ts":"...","skill":"agent-default","verb":"tick","score":1,
 "tick":15,"max_ticks":40,"dur_secs":207,"exit":0,
 "commits":2,"open_before":7,"open_after":5,"open_delta":2,
 "head_before":"a4b4d2f","head_after":"c1a84c3","note":"progress"}

A run of tick-no-op rows for the same agent is the load-bearing signal that the directive is stale (verify-only, agent has nothing to do); the PID loop should retire the agent rather than keep firing it.

Actor != auditor

The set verb's actor is state/bin/agents/go.sh; its auditor is the shape-check in go.md. The tick verb's actor is state/bin/agents/tick.sh running claude -p; its auditor is the deterministic git rev-list / jq snapshot pair surrounding the call. Two different mechanisms, per program.md's rule.

Dormancy note

This skill page does not have its own runnable command - invocation is handled by /snappy-go (see state/skills/go.md). The page exists to document the outcome-gate spec and to give historical eval rows a catalog home so structural lint stops flagging them as ghosts.

snappy-go - loader (dormant)

Full reference: state/skills/snappy-go.md. This skill is dormant; new runs are not expected.

Critical Rules

• NEVER treat a dormant skill as runnable without reviving its spec
• ALWAYS prefer an existing active skill over resurrecting a dormant one

Commands

|full spec: state/skills/snappy-go.md |eval log: state/log/evals.ndjson (skill: "snappy-go" - historical only)

Known Pitfalls

_(reclaimed ghost - no failures recorded in the new catalog yet.)_

Self-Test

1. [ ] Is this skill truly needed, or should I use an active neighbor?