using-clavain

Use Observe → Orient → Decide → Act → Reflect → Compound → Synthesize for substantive work. Load this router once at the first substantive task; reuse it on subsequent turns and resumed sessions unless the task or installation changes. Select applicable workflow and domain skills automatically. Users need not know their names. Trivial requests can be answered directly.

1. Observe actual files, tool results, sources, and outcomes.
2. Orient against the goal, constraints, existing evidence, and uncertainty.
3. Decide the next proportionate action and the evidence needed to judge it.
4. Act within the user's scope and authority; finish authorized work.
5. Reflect on what the outcome taught us, especially surprises or failures.
6. Compound a useful improvement in an authorized artifact: code, a test, requested documentation, or the project's tracker. Memory writes require their own authorization. If no durable improvement is warranted or authorized, retain the learning in the response or current working understanding.
7. Synthesize that learning with existing evidence and goals. Reconcile contradictions, revise conclusions or next priorities within scope, and state material changes. Do not silently start unrelated follow-up work.

Apply the loop at task, sprint, and session scale without compulsory headings, invented lessons, or a forced full lifecycle. User intent and runtime policy govern skill procedures; preserve review, verification, approval, release, and model routing boundaries. Existing OODARC telemetry identifiers and execution phases remain unchanged. See Sylveste PHILOSOPHY.md, the OODARCS lens, for the doctrine.

Reasoning allocation

Before substantive planning or execution, read the selected Clavain installation's docs/canon/reasoning-routing.md. Resolve roles with its config/routing.yaml and an accountable decision context. Substantial uncertainty, foundational invariants, broad consequences, difficult verification, and demonstrated capability failure require frontier involvement. Domain names are examples. Substantial new game, agent-system, AI/ML, graph-database, and product-strategy capabilities require frontier planning. Keep frontier involvement while evidence changes the plan. Hand off with decisions, constraints, verification, and escalation conditions explicit; retain empirical acceptance. Foundational/consequential plan review requires the other frontier model. Operational failures are not capability strikes. Preserve stricter gates; unsupported host routing must be reported.

Quick Router — 26 skills, 6 agents, and 57 commands

In Codex, read the selected skill's full SKILL.md using its path in the current catalog. Names below are capability hints; resolve the installed name and path. Do not run Claude slash commands in a terminal or assume they are Codex tools. In Claude Code, invoke the corresponding Skill tool or installed command.

Routes compose across task phases. Fixing a bug requires intertest:systematic-debugging for reproduction and diagnosis, then intertest:test-driven-development for implementation, including its required verification skill load. Executing an existing plan also requires clavain:executing-plans; retain that plan and its acceptance criteria. Load each required body before applying its workflow.

| Task | Primary skill | Add when relevant | |------|---------------|-------------------| | Diagnose a bug or failing check | intertest:systematic-debugging | clavain:bug-reproduction-validator | | Plan implementation | clavain:writing-plans | clavain:plan-reviewer | | Execute an existing plan | clavain:executing-plans | Domain skill, focused verification | | Implement a feature or fix | intertest:test-driven-development | clavain:refactor-safely for significant refactors | | Research a question | Available research skill matching its depth and sources | alwe for prior agent sessions; domain documentation skills | | Write documentation | Guidance for the requested artifact and house style | clavain:engineering-docs for a solved problem; artifact-format skill | | Audit, refactor, or consolidate documentation | interscribe:interscribe | interwatch:doc-watch for drift | | Review code or a plan | clavain:code-review-discipline | clavain:plan-reviewer; installed Interflux engine for deeper review | | Prepare an authorized release | intertest:verification-before-completion | clavain:landing-a-change, release/domain procedures | | Choose next project work | internext:next-work | interphase:beads-workflow | | Operate the portfolio agency | clavain:remontoire | Load only for portfolio operations |

These are common routes, not an allowlist. Every installed unique capability remains eligible for automatic selection, including specialist and companion skills. Select by the actual task and scope. Prefer the existing plan over starting a fresh brainstorm. Read routing-tables.md when the task needs more domain or host-specific routing detail.

For explanatory documentation requested in the response, use this writing guidance: name the trigger, affected behavior, supporting evidence, and verification steps. Distinguish a proposed fix from an installed or verified fix. Keep the note in the requested destination and scope; do not turn it into a repository-documentation audit. Load a specialist writing or artifact skill when its procedures help the requested document.

Boundaries and missing companions

Load detailed procedures and supporting resources only when relevant. A missing companion is not permission to install plugins, change MCP settings, or fetch repositories. Continue with supported tools and disclose a material capability gap; ask only when it blocks a required outcome. Preserve a blocked external review as a gate; switching providers or destinations is not a fallback for policy.

Delegate only when authorized and supported by the active host; otherwise execute in the main thread and batch independent tool calls. Use the project's actual tracker; do not create a second task system. Outside a project, maintain lightweight in-session state. Verify current results before reporting completion.