/press

Press may add or strengthen tests and make tiny corrective fixes only when a test exposes a clear defect in the cooked scope.

--hard propagation

/press --hard

(propagated from

/cook --hard

) is pass-through only. Press runs no gate. Hand

--hard

forward to

/age

at the handoff so it eventually reaches

/cure

, which is the only pipeline skill that fires the metacognitive vibecheck. See

skills/hard-cheese/SKILL.md

Baseline-aware gates

When the cooked diff's handoff slug carries a recorded

baseline:

block, press re-runs the project's gates but does not re-flag or re-halt on failures identical to that baseline (same test, same signature) — only new or changed failures affect readiness. See

../cook/references/quality-gates.md

for the classification and policy.

Flow

Read — load the spec or acceptance criteria and the cooked diff. If
```
.cheese/glossary/<slug>.md
```
exists, read it for naming consistency when hardening tests.
Map — for each changed behaviour, find the test(s) that cover it through semantic caller search.
Gap analysis — identify weak assertions, missing boundaries, and uncovered integration seams. See
```
references/gap-analysis.md
```
for what counts as a gap and the priority order.
Add focused tests — observe red first when behaviour changes. Apply precise stale-safe edits.
Corrective fixes — only for defects the hardening tests expose. No new behaviour.
Run checks — narrowest useful tests, then relevant wider gates already in the project. When the handoff carries a
```
baseline:
```
block, classify gate failures against it per
```
../cook/references/quality-gates.md
```
: identical failures do not affect readiness; only new or changed failures do.
Report — write
```
.cheese/press/<slug>.md
```
(slug carried from
```
/cook
```
, or derived from branch/task) and print the path. Mark readiness:
```
ready for /age
```
,
```
follow-up recommended
```
, or
```
blocked
```
.
Hand off — in manual mode, prompt the next step via the shared handoff gate (see
```
## Handoff
```
below); in
```
--auto
```
mode, chain forward per
```
## Auto mode
```
.

Preferred tools and fallbacks

Call source-code search, read, and edit backends directly according to

code-intelligence-routing.md

. For coverage and test discovery, use semantic caller search plus

tilth_deps

when available.

Portability reference:

../cheese/references/harness-portability.md

. It covers helper resolution, sub-agent dispatch, GitHub operations, and handoff transitions; prefer the bundled or repo-local helper first, and treat

${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}

as optional host-provided fallback. The handoff blocks below are the portable contract; slash commands are host renderings, not the control model.

Beyond source-code routing there are press-specific tools:

Need	Prefer	Fallback
Diff review	`delta`	plain `git diff`
Affected execution flows + risk scoring	semantic caller/dependency tracing and `tilth_deps`	manual flow tracing from changed files; note the precision loss

If optional tools are missing, press a narrower surface and state the residual risk.

Output

House style and citation form:

../cheese/references/formatting.md

. This section owns the press-report shape.

Write to

.cheese/press/<slug>.md

with a minimum handoff slug at the top so

/cook

's fan pathway and

/cheese --continue

can chain without re-parsing the report. The full report shape:

markdown

status: ok | halt: <one-line reason>
next: press | age | done
artifact: <path-if-any>
baseline: none | <recorded baseline block copied from the cook handoff — see ../cook/references/quality-gates.md>
<one-line orientation: what press did — e.g., "added 4 boundary tests; no defects exposed">

# Press Report — <slug>

## Orientation
<one or two factual sentences about what press did this pass — the hardening added, the gaps closed, the readiness verdict. `/cheese --continue` surfaces the slug's orientation line to the user as "where you are", so press's orientation must describe press's own work, not duplicate cook's orientation.>

## Checks run
- <command>: <pass|fail|skipped with reason>

## Findings
| Severity | Category | Evidence | Recommendation |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |

## Coverage
- Spec coverage:
- Boundary coverage:
- Assertion strength:

## Readiness
<ready for /age | follow-up recommended | blocked>

## Next step
<ready for /age>:           /age <slug>           — review the cooked + pressed diff
<follow-up recommended>:    /age <slug>           — review-safe; documented follow-ups addressed after review
<blocked>:                  resolve blocking issues before proceeding

status: ok

maps to readiness

ready for /age

follow-up recommended

;

status: halt: <reason>

maps to

blocked

next:

names the next runnable phase:

age

when review-safe,

press

when blocking issues must be resolved and the hardening phase rerun. Use

next: done

only for true terminal completion, not for a blocked-but-resumable halt.

/ultracook

still stops automatically on any

status: halt

;

next:

is the resume hint for

/cheese --continue

When

baseline:

is present, press honors it: identical recorded failures never move readiness off

ready for /age

; only new or changed failures do, per

../cook/references/quality-gates.md

Then print:

Press report: .cheese/press/<slug>.md
Next step:    /age <slug>                          (when ready for /age or follow-up recommended)
              blocked — resolve before continuing  (when blocked)

Handoff

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

After the press report is on disk, ask via the shared handoff gate in

../cheese/references/handoff-gate.md

, following its Standard forward-step menu. Lead each option with the verb (what the user wants to do next); the skill command (with any in-scope

--hard

propagation) is the backing detail. Default options:

Review the diff (recommended when readiness is
ready for /age
or
follow-up recommended
) —
```
/age <slug>
```
. For
```
follow-up recommended
```
, documented follow-ups can be addressed after review.
Plate it —
```
/age <slug> --auto --open-pr
```
: run age → cure, then
```
/plate
```
resolves topology and publishes.
Checkpoint & stop —
```
/wheypoint
```
: write a resumable handoff and pause.
Stop — dispatch none; defer review (use this if you want to harden manually before /age, even though the contract is review-safe).

Pre-select Review the diff when ready. If blocked, do not pre-select Plate it. Run a non-stop selection immediately.

Auto mode

When invoked with

--auto

(propagated from

/cook --auto

Skip the handoff gate entirely.
If readiness is
```
ready for /age
```
or
```
follow-up recommended
```
, invoke
```
/age <slug> --auto
```
directly (forward
```
--open-pr
```
when it is in scope).
If readiness is
```
blocked
```
, stop the auto chain and surface the press report to the user. Blocked criteria: defined once in
```
references/gap-analysis.md
```
.

Within cook's own fan pathway

When

/cook

's fan pathway (its retired-

/ultracook

mechanics, now self-hosted — see

skills/cook/SKILL.md

## Fan pathway

) spawns press as a fresh-context sub-agent, it owns the chain itself. When the spawn prompt explicitly says "for THIS PHASE ONLY" and "do not chain forward to the next phase," honour the override: write

.cheese/press/<slug>.md

(with the handoff slug at the top) and stop. Do not invoke

/age <slug> --auto

from inside the sub-agent regardless of readiness. The orchestrator reads the handoff slug and either chains to age (when

status: ok

and

next: age

) or halts (when

status: halt

, regardless of

next:

next:

remains the resume hint for

/cheese --continue

Rules

Do not weaken assertions.
Do not broaden implementation beyond the cooked contract.
Every changed behaviour in the cooked diff leaves press with an executable hardening test that would fail if the change regressed. If press cannot produce a stable hardening test for a changed behaviour (flaky seam, missing infrastructure, design decision required), readiness is
```
blocked
```
— never
```
ready for /age
```
or
```
follow-up recommended
```
.
Cap iteration at three attempts per gap. Count test-edit + run cycles. On the third failed cycle on the same gap, mark readiness
```
blocked
```
with reason
```
spinning: <gap-description>
```
and surface the report. Do not loop indefinitely.
Surface medium and high findings explicitly; summarize low findings.
If the cooked diff or spec rests on a false premise (the contract is wrong, or the test surface is solving the wrong problem), stop and surface the premise before adding tests; do not harden the wrong angle.
Apply the shared voice kernel (lives at
```
../age/references/voice.md
```
): lead the press report with the readiness verdict, flag residual risk as
```
certain | speculating | don't know
```
, agree when coverage is already sufficient without manufacturing tests.

press

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content