Turn a high-leverage design decision into an approved spec through grounded dialogue. Use it when a leverage trigger fires (auth, irreversible effects, concurrency, contracts, destructive ops, a new slice, a cross-slice dependency, an invariant gap) or when the user asks for a spec or design. Typica

/mold Ceremony scales to the job. The Bounds pass picks one of three tiers from references/tiers.md : Quick writes a one confirm mini spec, Light runs only the dialogue modes the open forks need, and Full runs the whole Flow below. /cheese 's tier 1 escalation enters mini spec mode with no confirm; see Agent invoked mini spec mode . Flow 1. Bounds pass — open the Goal / Decided / Asking / [AGENT DECIDED] ledger with the goal pinned as one sentence; only an explicit user fork changes it. Map every input's goals and non goals as one [AGENT DECIDED] line; ask the user only when the goal is genuinely unknown or a leverage trigger fires. Run the shape check, then announce the tier with its reason ( references/tiers.md ). Quick exits here: one fast confirm, then Agent invoked mini spec mode . Upgrade the tier whenever the evidence changes; never downgrade silently. 2. Route — choose the secondary mode from references/modes.md , announce it, and correct false premises first. 3. Dialogue — consequential forks are the user's to pick. A fork is consequential per the leverage line in ../age/references/voice.md . Every other fork is [AGENT DECIDED] . Supply options, trade offs, and evidence before you ask. Ground each critical claim through code, the [Validate Cycle](references/validate cycle.md), or a [Prototype Cycle](references/prototype cycle.md). Resolve every contradiction. Render the decision map after three consecutive fork questions, or on request. 4. Sketch — For work across modules or with a new public interface, run references/shape check.md . Bind identity and role nouns to code referents. Record the Placement block; no bodies. 5. Plan for approval — run the fresh context fork coherence taste test with python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz taste test and persist its digest bound pass; a failure reopens only named forks, and the third failed verdict stops. Light with one expected curd stops here: no planner, and the handoff is /cook auto <spec path . Otherwise dispatch a typed PlannerRequest , validate its PlannerResultWriterView (one retry, then stop before the handshake), normalize on the host, and persist only the typed PlannerResult and CurdPlan . A legacy projection needs an explicit migration request and must be lossless or UnsupportedProjection . Present the plan's semantic curds and waves at the handshake. See references/curdle.md § "Pre approval typed planner dispatch". 6. Two key handshake — Before extraction, the user and agent must agree to the draft spec and displayed typed plan. The user provides an explicit verb. The agent performs a coherence self check. Neither key changes nor disappears. See references/handshake.md . 7. Curdle — Resolve the durable spec path with SPEC=$(python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz artifact path specs <slug ) . Phase one writes the local artifact and write ahead prepared state before any external call. It writes the approved spec at "$SPEC" . It also writes the host validated PlannerResult and CurdPlan . It also writes local issue drafts and the session's non obvious decisions as durable ADRs. Phase two publishes approved follow ups. Retain the prepared recovery state when an external capability is unavailable or publication fails. Phase two reconciles their state and references into the durable spec before any handoff. 8. Publish and hand off — after reconciliation, run [ python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz curd count ](references/curd count.md). Then publish the approved CurdPlan with python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz publish and keep the returned HandoffPointer path; Light with one curd skips publish and hands /cook auto <spec path . Prompt through Handoff . Dispatch only the user's non stop selection. Portability: [ ../cheese/references/harness portability.md ](../cheese/references/harness portability.md). Prefer bundled/repo local helpers; slash commands are host renderings, not the control model. Follow up candidates Every non goal and explicit dialogue deferral becomes a [FOLLOW UP?] follow up candidate. Dispose of the set before the two key handshake; details: references/handshake.md § Follow up disposition. Modes Mode Use when Goal Explore The idea is vague Identify the real problem and pain point Ground A file, bug, or existing doc is named Verify facts against evidence Shape The goal is known but approach is open Compare viable options (Do Nothing always included) Sketch Interfaces or module boundaries matter Lock responsibilities and seams Grill A favoured approach needs stress testing Steelman each item, then put every design changing call to the user as a fork Diagnose A symptom, failure, or trace is supplied Build a Loop → reproduce → hypothesize → confirm root cause Mode definitions, exit criteria, and user knobs: references/modes.md . Trigger and trace evals, including Grill user fork checks: references/evals.md . Agent invoked mini spec mode /cheese 's tier 1 escalation calls /mold after the call site passes all cook fast path checks, and the Quick tier enters the same mode after its one confirm. It produces a spec without design dialogue. This mode skips the rest of the Flow above. Derive a slug. Write the mini spec. Parse its declared gate applicability. Return the resolved spec path with /cook auto <spec path . Append hard when the user passed it. The two key handshake does not run in this mode. The agent introduced scope check still runs implicitly. Every distinguishing noun must come from the user's input or tier 2 /culture / /briesearch synthesis. Never add one silently. Full procedure, the mini spec schema, and the Provenance rules: references/mini spec mode.md . Preferred tools and fallbacks Call source code search, read, and edit backends according to [ code intelligence routing.md ](../cheese/references/code intelligence routing.md). Shape checks use semantic caller search plus dependency context; procedure: references/shape check.md . Mold specific tools beyond source code routing: Need Prefer Fallback External validation /briesearch with Context7/Tavily user docs, repo docs, or note as unverified Wiki grounding (Ground entry + decision points; scope per references/grounding.md § When to probe) mcp hallouminate list corpora + mcp hallouminate ground on repo:<repo :wiki record hallouminate: absent in the ledger, proceed on code evidence, and cap at speculating when design rationale is central The grounding record is a precondition for the first structured question. Do not ask the question until the ledger contains a probe result. The result contains citations or hallouminate: absent . Mark each unsupported claim [?] until you settle it. Sub agent context gate /mold owns the dialogue, contradictions, and approval state. Do not delegate these items. Delegate evidence heavy code work to a fresh context explorer and external research to a researcher . Shape uses an explorer digest as input. Record parent context exploration as a degraded path. See references/context budget.md for budgets and checkpoints. Gate graph python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz gate graph render dot svg png mermaid renders one gate model. Image targets use Mermaid when Graphviz is unavailable. Tests keep gate nodes aligned with the handshake checklist. See references/gate graph.md . Gate applicability and Test Contracts Every Mold produced spec carries a provenance marker in frontmatter: Every spec declares gate applicability : ui surface is required on the Mold production path: browser means every Test Contract names an existing browser/E2E interface and outer seam, non browser is explicit and never inferred from prose, and not applicable is required for closed non behavior classes including appearance only. red required requires behavior plus a complete Test Contracts table with one executable red row; not applicable requires a closed class, a reason, and no contracts. Mold never infers applicability. Row level rules: references/curdle.md § Test Contracts. Fork taste gate python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz taste test binds the verdict to draft SHA256 and each settled fork. Stale, partial, or blocked verdicts fail; a failure reopens only named forks, with two rounds. Approved red required specs pass unchanged metadata and the published pointer to /cook auto . Each fork appears in Approach, Interface sketches, Acceptance, plus Test Contracts for red required ; no Test Contracts in not applicable specs. Do not rename sections. Tag reflecting lines with fork id and run taste test precheck before dispatch; see references/curdle.md § Spec template. goal must survive unchanged, case and whitespace insensitively, in Problem statement, or goal drift fails; see references/gate graph.md § Fork taste planner gate. Approval gate Curdle requires the two key handshake . It requires an explicit user verb: curdle or ship it . It also requires the agent's coherence self check. Present the validated typed CurdPlan 's N curds / M waves with the final approval request in Flow step 5; on Light's single curd path there is no plan, so present the spec alone and mark the plan boxes n/a . See references/handshake.md for the checklist, mandatory gates, and override semantics. Before the handshake runs, present the scope audit table once: agent introduced nouns, non goals, entity bindings, and follow ups, each with a default. One confirm approves the defaults; only leverage rows and unresolved bindings need their own verb. Procedure: references/handshake.md § Scope audit table. If any gate is unmet, propose the smallest next question, evidence check, or planner correction. Do the same if the typed plan remains invalid after one retry. Write artifacts only after both keys pass. hard Mold never runs the metacognitive check. Plate alone runs it at the verified artifacts boundary. Mold appends hard to every Cook command that it emits when the user passed the flag. Cure forwards the same flag to Plate. See ../hard cheese/references/composition.md . Handoff Pipeline: culture → [mold] → cook → press → age → cure → plate After Curdle's phase two finishes, run python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz curd count . Then publish the approved plan with python3 skills/mold/scripts/mold.pyz publish . Then prompt through the shared handoff gate ([policy](../cheese/references/handoff gate.md)). Approved red required behavior recommends /cook auto <pointer path . Keep the applicability, contract, and taste metadata unchanged. Append hard when the user passed it. Never pre select. The digest's mode is orientation, not a skill. Render the fixed blast radius menu from decomposable , candidate curds , verdict , and mode ; see references/handoff menus.md . Rules Dialogue first; artifacts are the by product. Tiered lettered options. Consequential forks use A/B/C/D choices via the question transport at ../cheese/references/ask user question.md . Never decide them silently. Everything below the leverage line is [AGENT DECIDED] by default: make the call, log a one line vetoable alternative in the ledger, and do not ask. A fork is valid only after its depth was contributed in dialogue first. Precede every structured question with visible prose that weighs the fork and the evidence. Keep one open picker. Altitude tag. Every Asking fork names the acceptance criterion, public seam, or non goal it moves. A fork that moves none, or that sits below the leverage line, is [AGENT DECIDED] or a follow up candidate, never a user question. Decision ledger. Each round prints Goal / Decided / Asking / [AGENT DECIDED] , the goal verbatim. Curdle persists consequential decisions to [ADRs](references/a