/culture

Two modes:

Internal mode (default). Other workflow skills — and
```
/cheese
```
itself — invoke
```
/culture
```
silently as a thinking pass: restate the question, list assumptions, name candidate options, run a quick shape check, pick the next action. The dialogue does not surface to the user; only the resulting decision (and any code edits the calling skill makes) does. The most common callers are:
- ```
/cheese
```
  step 1 — silent classification reasoning before announce.
- ```
/cheese
```
  tier-2 escalation (see
```
skills/cheese/SKILL.md
```
  § Escalation) — fills missing context when the cook-fast-path clarity check fails on the raw input; the synthesis lands in the mini-spec's
```
## Provenance
```
  section.
- Other workflow skills' own pre-dispatch reasoning passes (mold, cook taste-test, etc.).
User-facing mode. The user has explicitly opted out of writes for this session. Conversation is the deliverable; no code, no spec, no PR. Reach this mode only when the user said "no writes" / "rubber-duck this" / "just talk" or equivalent.

Do not use the user-facing mode when the user wants a written spec (

/mold

), implementation (

/cook

), review (

/age

), or external evidence gathering (

/briesearch

) — those targets get the internal-mode call instead, and the calling skill does the work.

Invariant

/culture

does not write production code, commit changes, open PRs, or mutate project state. The only sanctioned artifact is the opt-in notes handoff at

.cheese/notes/<slug>.md

(see

## Handoff slug

below), written only at session end of a user-facing session and only when the user asks for notes — never during dialogue, never in internal mode. If a user-facing conversation reveals that something should be built, route to

/mold

/cook

and stop. In internal mode, just return the decision and let the calling skill act.

Flow

Both modes share the same reasoning loop. The difference is what the agent does with the output: internal mode returns a single decision back to the calling skill; user-facing mode renders the dialogue and waits for the user.

Restate the question or tension in one sentence. If the question rests on a false premise or a loaded assumption, name it.
Identify assumptions, constraints, and decision criteria.
Explore trade-offs and likely blast radius. When the trade-off hinges on "what does this touch", run a read-only shape check on the candidate seam — a
```
cheez-search
```
callers query (
```
tilth_search kind: "callers"
```
) plus
```
tilth_deps
```
— and label each option
```
[low | medium | high blast radius]
```
. Procedure mirrors
```
../mold/references/shape-check.md
```
; culture stops at the verdict and never drafts signatures. Steelman the rejected option before settling on a recommendation.
Use evidence only when it helps the reasoning; avoid deep research unless explicitly asked.
Converge on a single recommended next action. In internal mode, return that recommendation and stop. In user-facing mode, render a compact summary, open questions tagged with confidence (
```
certain | speculating | don't know
```
), and a
```
## Handoff
```
prompt (see below).

Default the model's own contribution to maximum useful depth — full pseudocode signatures over hand-waving, named edge cases over "consider edge cases", concrete file:line evidence over vague pointers. Smallest-useful-question discipline applies only to what you ask the user, never to what you offer them.

Preferred tools and fallbacks

Code search and reading go through the

cheez-*

skills (

/cheez-search

/cheez-read

) — see those skills for tool selection rules. Blast-radius reads specifically use

cheez-search

callers (

kind: "callers"

) plus

tilth_deps

(read-only shape check); culture stops at the verdict and never drafts signatures.

Beyond

cheez-*

there are culture-specific tools:

Need	Prefer	Fallback
Visualizing diffs or examples	`delta`	plain `git diff`
External sanity check	`/briesearch`	clearly mark as an assumption

Missing optional tools should not interrupt the conversation. Keep tool use light; this is a thinking session.

Output

Return a short conversational summary:

Current understanding
Trade-offs or options
Open questions

Handoff slug

When (and only when) the user asks for notes at session end, write an optional handoff slug to

.cheese/notes/<slug>.md

. The slug uses the same minimum schema as the other phase handoffs so

/cheese --continue <slug>

can read it:

markdown

status: ok | halt: <one-line reason>
next: mold | cook | ultracook | stop
artifact: <path-if-any>
<one-line orientation: what the culture session converged on>

next:

is culture-specific — values are

mold

(fuzzy idea, route to spec),

cook

(clear ask, route to implementation),

ultracook

(clear ask with high blast radius, route to autonomous fresh-context chain), or

stop

(no further action). The orientation line captures the punchline of the dialogue in one factual sentence; deeper notes go in the body of the same file.

The notes slug is the only thing culture is allowed to write. No commits, no PRs, no production-code edits — those route to

/mold

/cook

Handoff

Pipeline: [culture] → mold → cook → press → age → cure → ship

When the conversation reveals real work, ask via the shared handoff gate in

../../shared/handoff-gate.md

. Lead each option with the verb (what the user wants to do next); the skill command is the backing detail. Before asking, render a compact context packet so the downstream skill can dispatch without losing the discussion:

yaml

handoff_context:
  source_skill: /culture
  summary: <one factual sentence>
  open_questions: [<only blockers, if any>]
  artifact: <.cheese/notes/<slug>.md if written, otherwise none>

Default options (pick at most three of these plus a stop):

Shape this into a written spec (recommended when the idea is still fuzzy) —
```
/mold
```
with the context packet, or
```
/mold .cheese/notes/<slug>.md
```
when a notes slug exists.
Implement it directly (recommended when the ask is clear and unambiguous) —
```
/cook
```
with the context packet as the accepted contract.
Implement and auto-review —
```
/cook --auto
```
with the context packet, chains through
```
/press → /age → /cure
```
autonomously, fixing every medium-or-above finding plus cheap (contained-fix) lows across up to two cure passes. Stops at the final cure pass; opening or updating the PR stays a manual step. Pre-select this when the conversation reached an unambiguous contract; offer the non-auto
```
/cook
```
as an alternative when the user wants per-step approval.
Research more first (when the conversation hit a factual gap external docs could close) —
```
/briesearch
```
.
Pause — dispatch none; keep the dialogue in head.

After a non-stop selection, run the selected downstream skill immediately with the context packet.

/age

is never the next step from culture — review needs a diff to look at.

Rules

No production-code writes, no commits, no PRs. The only sanctioned write is the opt-in
```
.cheese/notes/<slug>.md
```
handoff at session end, and only when the user asks for it.
Ask one useful question at a time when the user is exploring.
Prefer clarity over completeness.
Agree when agreement is warranted; do not manufacture counterpoints to seem balanced.
When external evidence raises an alternative ("X uses Y or Z"), name it as a trade-off in the dialogue and a candidate option — never silently recommend "add both" or "expose a knob". Design choices need explicit user adjudication, not agent inference from a citation.
Apply the shared voice kernel (lives at
```
skills/age/references/voice.md
```
in this repo): lead with the answer, flag confidence as
```
certain | speculating | don't know
```
, steelman, track contradictions across turns.

culture

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content