Dojo

Dojo — Skills Earn Their Place

Purpose

Treat every skill as a claim about future agent behavior. Make the claim earn trust through observable evidence before release. Do not ship a skill merely because its instructions sound convincing.

Dojo is the verification layer. Reuse an installed skill creator or the host's normal scaffolding when useful; do not compete with it. Own evaluation, pressure, held-out graduation, routing checks, and the evidence record. When the user explicitly asks to build a skill through Dojo, run the selected lane end to end. For a narrow edit, use the edit-to-kata mapping below. State which kata are run, which are skipped, and why.

Start By Choosing A Lane

Lane controls evidence rigor and cost. Tier controls which kata fit the skill. Do not confuse them. Read references/lanes.md before starting work.

Lane	Use it for	What it adds
Fast Lane	Early creation, ordinary hardening, focused edits, quick feedback	Fresh instruction-bounded runners, affected comparisons, one fresh check, applicable routing/package checks, lightweight receipts
Audit Lane	Graduation, release proof, benchmarks, contamination-sensitive or high-risk claims	v0.2 isolation, canaries, inspected traces, role separation, frozen candidates, held-outs, and complexity-triggered portable preflight

The canonical automation selector is --lane auto|fast|audit; default is auto. Also accept --fast-lane [true|false] and --audit-lane [true|false] as aliases. Selectors are case-insensitive. More than one enabled selector or an unknown value is INVALID_LANE; do not guess. Explicit fast or audit is sticky: never silently switch it. --quiet suppresses the conversational overview and ticker for benchmark harnesses but does not remove lane metadata from receipts. For an interactive invocation without --quiet, give one compact pre-run overview: what Fast Lane would do, what Audit Lane would additionally do, the selected lane and reason, and the applicable versus skipped kata. Under --lane auto, recommend and select a lane without adding a confirmation gate.

User-Facing Progress

While a Dojo campaign is active, end each useful interactive progress update with this compact ticker:

Progress: ~<percent>% (<milestone> - <completed>/<total>, next: <next milestone>)
ETA: ~<remaining duration | estimating | blocked on dependency>

Count declared campaign milestones or applicable kata, not tool calls. Update the estimate when the plan changes; do not fake precision and do not send a message solely to move the ticker. Keep these as the final two non-empty lines. Omit the ticker from final answers, runner prompts and outputs, evidence logs, JSON, exact-output tasks, and every --quiet invocation.

Measurability Rule

Use two kinds of pass criteria:

• Observable process checks — yes/no facts about what the agent did.
• Exact-match trigger checks — which skill the router selected.

Keep holistic output quality as explicit human or reviewer judgment. Do not turn taste into a fake scalar. When a real task-level grader exists, use it and record its result alongside the Dojo evidence.

Before any run, declare whether load-bearing success includes qualitative judgment that process checks cannot decide. If so, name the human or reviewer authority, prewrite the acceptance rubric, and blind the judge to baseline versus candidate identity when practical. A required rejection makes the gate FAIL; an unavailable required authority makes the campaign UNPROVEN. Passing observable checks cannot overrule that gate. After a qualitative FAIL, make one bounded fix, freeze a new candidate revision, and rerun the same qualitative gate before opening another graduation attempt.

Choose The Tier

Tier	Skill shape	Required rigor
Discipline	Rules agents rationalize around	RED–GREEN–REFACTOR plus adversarial pressure variants
Technique	Multi-step orchestration	Baseline-fail plus skilled walkthrough
Reference	Facts, flags, or recipes	Correctness review plus trigger evaluation

Every full Audit Lane campaign gets trigger evaluation. Only Audit Lane discipline campaigns require all time, sunk-cost, and authority-pressure variants; Fast Lane keeps only affected pressure checks.

When a skill mixes tiers, the highest-risk load-bearing behavior wins. Any rule whose value depends on resisting a plausible shortcut, authority claim, unsafe request, permission expansion, or evidence rationalization makes the campaign discipline unless that behavior is split into a separate skill. Use technique only when the hard part is orchestration competence rather than temptation resistance. Use reference only for lookup and correctness.

For a reference-tier Audit Lane campaign, run source-backed correctness review, trigger evaluation, and packaging. Fast Lane runs affected correctness plus routing only when routing changed. Mark behavioral RED/GREEN comparison, pressure variants, and held-out graduation as not applicable. If the candidate claims an operational workflow beyond reference lookup, classify it as technique instead of quietly expanding the reference tier. Read references/reference-correctness.md for the executable review contract.

Narrow Edit Mapping

Every Dojo edit campaign records identity, changed claims, selected kata, package validation, and a terminal verdict. Then apply this mapping:

Changed surface	Required kata
name, description, trigger phrases, or exclusions	Full trigger matrix and package validation
Behavioral instructions or references	Isolation preflight; affected training cases plus adjacent regressions; new held-outs when the release behavior claim changes; package validation
Reference facts or authoritative sources	Correctness review for every affected claim; package validation; trigger matrix only if routing text changed
Isolation, runner, grader, or evidence semantics	Harness preflight; affected behavioral regressions; package validation
Lane selection, overview, or progress behavior	Focused Fast/Audit lane regressions; exact-output contamination check; package validation
Host metadata or package structure only	Package validation and clean-context smoke; trigger matrix when routing metadata changed

A documentation-only repository edit outside the installable skill is not a Dojo campaign. A skipped trigger or graduation kata is valid only when this table makes it unaffected and the record states that rationale.

In Fast Lane, replace any held-out requirement with the fresh different-in-kind check from lanes.md; do not create custody machinery. A claim that the edit is proven for release belongs in Audit Lane.

Establish Isolation Before Testing

Fresh context alone is insufficient. A new runner may still spelunk through sibling seeds, criteria, prior runs, installed skill metadata, or the candidate itself. Fast Lane addresses this with an explicit no-spelunk instruction boundary and records fresh-context only; it does not claim audited evidence. Audit Lane chooses and records the strongest available grade:

1. Audited instruction-bounded — a fresh context receives an exact capability envelope, unique run folder, canary preflight, and inspected path or tool audit. Clean runs may support RED, pressure, and graduation.
2. Fresh-context only — a new context without a verified read boundary. Use for exploratory feedback, not clean RED or graduation claims.
3. Degraded local review — static inspection in the authoring context.

Use PASS, FAIL, or INVALID for every behavioral run. Any access to criteria, expected answers, sibling fixtures, prior outputs, forbidden skill material, or other undeclared context makes the run INVALID, regardless of its output score. Replace invalid evidence before graduation. Read references/isolation.md before launching any behavioral runner.

In Audit Lane, read references/harness-contracts.md only when the package has hidden evaluator assets, executable local dependencies, network/process/memory receipts, generated artifact proofs, a cross-host machine-verifiable claim, or an explicit portable-harness request. Ordinary audited text runs keep the v0.2 envelope, canary, and inspected native path/tool audit without manufacturing extra manifests.

The Seven Kata

Audit Lane uses the applicable kata exactly as written below. Fast Lane uses them as a selection map, with its compact record and fresh check replacing the formal isolation manifest, candidate freeze, custody, and graduation ceremony.

1. Intake

Classify the tier and whether this is a new skill or an edit. Audit Lane builds a coverage ledger across claimed modes, archetypes, state transitions, dependency states, output contracts, safety boundaries, and meaningful interactions, then reserves different-in-kind holdouts. Fast Lane names the affected claim and smallest useful cases, plus one fresh different-in-kind check. Complexity expands breadth; risk and stochasticity expand trials.

In Audit Lane, persist the battery immediately:

~/.dojo/<repo-slug>/<skill>/
  <skill>-scenarios.md
  <skill>-runs/
  <skill>-record.md

In Fast Lane, open the lightweight record from references/packaging.md instead; do not create empty scenario and run trees.

Require a candidate skill directory before creating the evidence identity. For an idea-only request, choose or create the intended candidate directory first. Resolve the repository root with git -C <candidate-skill-directory> rev-parse --show-toplevel. If the candidate is not in Git, use the explicitly declared project root containing it; if none exists, use the candidate directory itself. Never derive identity from ambient working directory. Record the candidate path and fallback. Canonicalize the root by making it absolute, resolving symlinks plus . and .., rendering separators as /, removing a trailing separator except for a filesystem root, and lowercasing only a Windows drive letter. Derive repo-slug from the canonical root basename by lowercasing it, replacing non-alphanumeric runs with hyphens, and trimming edge hyphens.

Before writing, read the identity fields in any occupied slug. If they name the same canonical root, reuse it. If they are missing or name another root, append the first eight lowercase hex characters of SHA-256 over the UTF-8 canonical root. If that candidate is also occupied by another or unknown root, extend the same digest prefix four characters at a time through all 64 characters. A mismatch at the full digest is an error: stop and never merge evidence trees. Immediately after the title in both the scenario ledger and record, write Repository root:, Root resolution: git|declared-project|candidate-fallback, Repository slug:, and Candidate skill path:. The repository fields are the collision identity; do not infer ownership from the directory name alone.

Append every test prompt verbatim as sent and every result line as received. Record the coverage ledger, predeclared trial counts, isolation plan, training scenarios, and only the reserved coverage cells for held-outs. Do not materialize concrete holdout tasks in the authoring context. Read references/pressure-testing.md before designing the battery and references/isolation.md for the required role separation.

2. Baseline — RED

Bind the counterfactual to the declared claim before running it:

• New-skill or absolute skill-value claim: compare against no skill.
• Edit-improvement claim: compare against the frozen previous released version.
• Both claims: run and label both comparisons separately.

Never use a no-skill comparison to claim that an edit improved the released version. Preserve it only as separately labeled absolute-value evidence when that claim was predeclared; it cannot establish corrected or preserved edit behavior. Score only the prewritten criteria and capture the exact failure modes. Separate three claims: corrected means baseline fail then skilled pass; preserved means both pass; unproven means no valid counterfactual exists. If every valid baseline already passes, do not invent a failure or claim marginal improvement. Reconsider whether the skill adds reliability, compression, routing, or anything worth shipping.

Skip a new baseline only when concrete prior evidence already demonstrates the failure. Name and preserve that evidence.

3. Write — GREEN

Author the smallest instructions that address the observed failures. Check every criterion against an explicit instruction. Keep SKILL.md focused and move conditional detail into directly linked references/ files.

4. Pressure-Test — REFACTOR

Run the same training scenarios with the skill available. For discipline skills, add one pressure variant at a time. On failure, make one bounded edit, rerun only that scenario, and record whether the edit survived. Preserve failed attempts in the rejected-fix table.

Do not add a criterion after seeing an output and score it retroactively. Turn the discovery into a new precommitted scenario or regression case.

After three failed bounded edits for the same criterion, stop and reassess the skill shape or criterion.

5. Graduation

Fast Lane does not run formal graduation. It runs the fresh different-in-kind check in lanes.md and can finish only with a Fast Lane outcome. The procedure below is Audit Lane.

Freeze the candidate, record its content digest as the candidate revision, and open a new graduation-attempt identifier. Only then have a separate holdout custodian materialize the predeclared coverage cells into concrete tasks and criteria without seeing the candidate, training cases, or prior outputs. Run each held-out scenario for its predeclared number of independent trials with no edits between runs. A single required-trial failure burns the holdout: fix the skill, reserve and materialize a new holdout, and attempt graduation again. Never reuse a burned or exposed holdout as proof of generalization. Label graduation with its isolation grade.

6. Trigger Evaluation

Start with 10–15 realistic prompts: roughly 60% positives and 40% near-miss negatives. Expand until every declared mode and credible neighboring owner is covered. Compare against the actual installed skill landscape when the host exposes it. Prefer the real dispatcher; otherwise run two independent routing judges and label them as a proxy.

Every positive must select the skill. Any negative stolen from another skill is a collision. Read references/trigger-evals.md before running this kata.

7. Package And Record

Validate the installed skill folder against the Agent Skills format and the target host. Smoke-invoke it from a clean context. Leak-check every curated artifact before copying it into a repository.

End every Audit Lane candidate revision with exactly one verdict: GRADUATED, NOT GRADUATED, or UNPROVEN, scoped to its latest graduation attempt. Use GRADUATED only when every applicable gate for that revision and attempt passes with valid evidence and the record demonstrates a bounded value claim. Use NOT GRADUATED for a valid failing current gate. Use UNPROVEN when a required current gate is missing, contaminated, or cannot run validly. Retain older failures and burned attempts as history, but do not count replaced evidence against a later revision. Known limitations may narrow the claim; they never waive a current gate.

Fast Lane instead records exactly one of FAST-LANE PASS, FAST-LANE FAIL, or UNPROVEN using the compact receipt contract.

Keep raw runtime evidence under ~/.dojo/. Copy a curated record or fixtures into a repository only when the user wants checked-in proof. Read references/packaging.md for the ship checklist and record template.

Run Rules

• Record the requested selector, selected lane, selection reason, and skill tier before the first run.
• Use a fresh context per test run and label its actual isolation grade.
• Give every runner an exact read/write capability envelope.
• Keep criteria, expected answers, sibling fixtures, prior runs, and holdouts outside the runner's allowed roots.
• Keep the candidate absent from baseline allowed roots, startup context, and skill catalogs; any leak makes the baseline INVALID.
• Make every prompt self-contained; test runners do not inherit this chat.
• Write criteria before observing the result.
• Ask runners for raw steps and outputs, not a polished user summary.
• Record exact prompts, tool/file traces when available, inspected paths, model, host, active skill catalog, network policy, and isolation grade.
• In Audit Lane, treat the inspected path or tool audit as the evidence that the declared boundary held. Fast Lane runner self-report is not that audit.
• In Fast Lane, use the compact no-spelunk prompt from references/lanes.md, keep the claim at fresh-context confidence, and never emit GRADUATED.
• In Audit Lane, retain v0.2 graduation semantics. Use portable manifests and canonical events only when the complexity triggers above apply.

Do Not Use Dojo For

• One-line non-skill configuration or documentation edits.
• Ordinary plans, specifications, articles, or code review.
• Skills with a mature scalar grader and representative eval corpus; use that grader and treat Dojo only as a routing or release wrapper if needed.

References

• references/lanes.md — read first; defines lane selection, flags, overview, Fast Lane, Audit Lane, and automation behavior.
• references/isolation.md — read before every behavioral run.
• references/harness-contracts.md — read only for a triggered portable Audit Lane package.
• references/pressure-testing.md — read for kata 1, 2, and 4.
• references/reference-correctness.md — read for every reference-tier campaign.
• references/trigger-evals.md — read for kata 6.
• references/packaging.md — read for kata 7.