Alterlab ssci orchestrator

SSci Orchestrator — Route the Study, Hold the Passport, Enforce the Gates

Skill type: DISCIPLINE-ENFORCING (thin coordinator). This is the conductor of the social-science methods spine. It does no analysis. It walks a study through the gates in order, carries a single Design Passport between them, and refuses to let a stage run before its prerequisite gate has passed. For the actual routing/refusal logic, each gate owns its own skill; this skill owns sequence and hand-off.

The Core Rule

NO STAGE RUNS BEFORE ITS GATE PASSES. THE PASSPORT IS THE SINGLE SOURCE OF TRUTH.

A methods pipeline fails when stages run out of order — sampling sized before the design is fixed, a causal estimator run before the identifying assumption is pinned, a discussion written before the claim is audited. The orchestrator makes the order non-optional and makes every gate's verdict visible in one artifact.

When to Use This Skill

• "Walk me through designing and analyzing this whole study."
• "Run the methods pipeline / a full methodology review on my project."
• "I have a research question, some data, and a survey — take it from design to inference."
• The user's ask spans more than one gate/module and needs coordination.

Does NOT Trigger

The request is really about…	Route to	Why not this skill
A single stage (design, measurement, sampling, or claim audit)	the matching alterlab-ssci-*-gate	Trigger the gate directly; no orchestration needed.
Running one analysis method (DiD, CFA, QCA, SNA, ABM, text)	the matching analysis module	The module does it; the orchestrator only dispatches.
Multi-agent execution mechanics (fan-out, judge panels)	alterlab-workflow-orchestration	General composition engine; this skill is the social-science-specific spine on top of it.
A non-methods task (writing prose, literature search)	alterlab-paper-writer / alterlab-deep-research	Outside the methods pipeline.

The Pipeline

research question
  └─> [design-gate]  ── pins design_type + identifying_assumption ──▶ (MANDATORY: BLOCK-capable)
        └─> [measurement-gate]   quantitative constructs ─┐
            [reflexivity-gate]   qualitative/interpretivist ─┴─▶ (measurement-stage analog)
              └─> [sampling-gate]  ── frame + method + size logic ──▶ (WARN default)
                    └─> [ANALYSIS MODULE]  ── dispatched by design_type / data (see routing table) ──▶
                          └─> [inference-gate]  ── audits claims vs design/sample ──▶ (MANDATORY: BLOCK-capable)
                                └─> reporting

At the measurement stage the orchestrator picks the paradigm-appropriate gate: alterlab-ssci-measurement-gate for quantitative constructs (reliability/validity/invariance), alterlab-ssci-reflexivity-gate for qualitative/interpretivist work (positionality + Lincoln & Guba trustworthiness). Mixed-methods runs both on the respective strands.

Analysis-module routing (by design_type + data in the Passport):

If the design / data is…	Dispatch to
Complex-sample survey (weights / strata / clusters / FPC)	alterlab-survey-analysis
Quasi-experimental / observational causal (DiD, IV, RDD, panel FE)	alterlab-causal-inference
Clustered / nested / longitudinal (variance partitioning)	alterlab-multilevel-models
Latent constructs, CFA / SEM / IRT / invariance	alterlab-sem-psychometrics
Small-N configurational, set-theoretic (fsQCA/csQCA)	alterlab-qca
Relational / network data	alterlab-sna
Simulation of interacting agents	alterlab-abm-mesa
Corpora / open-ended text (computational)	alterlab-text-as-data
Qualitative coding of interviews / open text (human)	alterlab-qualitative-analysis
Pooling effect sizes across studies	alterlab-meta-analysis
Interpretive / theory-building	alterlab-qualitative-methods (existing)
Combined strands	alterlab-mixed-methods (existing)

Cross-cutting: when the dataset has missing values, alterlab-missing-data runs before the analysis module (state the mechanism, multiply impute) so every downstream estimate pools correctly.

Full stage contract, PASS/WARN/BLOCK rules, and the analysis-module decision logic: references/pipeline_contract.md. A stdlib validator that reads a Design Passport and reports the next gate and whether it is fail-closed: scripts/passport.py.

The Design Passport

One YAML artifact, created at entry and appended by each gate. The orchestrator never overwrites a prior gate's fields; it only advances the stage and dispatches the next gate.

research_question: <text>
stage: <design | measurement | sampling | analysis | inference | done>
design_type: <set by design-gate>
identifying_assumption: <set by design-gate>
claim_type: <causal | associational | descriptive>
constructs: [<appended by measurement-gate — quantitative>]
positionality: <appended by reflexivity-gate — qualitative>
trustworthiness: {credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability}  # reflexivity-gate
reflexivity_evidence: <appended by reflexivity-gate — qualitative>
sampling: {<appended by sampling-gate>}
analysis_module: [<chosen by the orchestrator from design_type / data>]
claims: [<audited by inference-gate>]
gate_log: [{gate: design, verdict: PASS|WARN|BLOCK, note: ...}, ...]

Gate verdict semantics

• PASS — the gate's discipline is satisfied; advance.
• WARN — an advisory issue; advance with the caveat recorded in gate_log and surfaced in the final report (default for measurement/sampling when non-fatal).
• BLOCK — fail-closed; the pipeline cannot advance until resolved. Design-gate BLOCKs when no design/assumption can be named; inference-gate BLOCKs when a claim exceeds the design/sample.

Self-Check Before Advancing a Stage

• Has the current stage's gate emitted a verdict recorded in gate_log?
• If the verdict is BLOCK, has it been resolved (not bypassed) before advancing?
• Is the analysis module chosen from design_type, not from the user's tool preference?
• Does the Passport still carry every upstream field (nothing overwritten)?

References

• references/pipeline_contract.md — stage-by-stage contract, verdict rules, analysis-module routing logic, worked run.
• scripts/passport.py — stdlib Design Passport validator / next-gate reporter.

Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.