Cure

/cure

Use this skill after /age, failed validation, or user-selected review findings need to be fixed and prepared for shipping.

Inputs

Accept any of: a /age slug (/cure <slug> reads .cheese/age/<slug>.md), a pasted findings list, a CI failure summary, or a scoped instruction like "fix the high-severity age findings". /age may also hand off with a pre-locked selection by passing the chosen ids in a structured handoff context (see references/selection.md#handoff-from-age for the canonical format); when that context is present, skip rendering the selection list and go straight to apply.

Age reports older than this severity-rubric revision lack the severity, location, fix-cost-now, and fix-cost-later sub-fields on each finding. Tolerate the older shape: when a finding has no severity field, infer it from the section header (## High-stake findings → high, ## Medium-stake findings → medium); when fix-cost-now is absent, the cheap selection verb resolves to the empty set per references/selection.md. Never reject a report for missing sub-fields; record any inference in the cure report under ### Notes. Reports predating the per-finding confidence: label simply lack it; treat missing confidence as unspecified — no inference, no rejection.

When /age or /affinage hands off a pre-locked selection, adopt it. When called bare without a pre-locked selection, apply the recommended composite (all-medium, cheap) per references/selection.md, which also defines the gate conditions.

Optional flags:

• --safe — re-introduce the selection and terminal publication handoff gates.
• --open-pr — after a clean cure, allow terminal /plate publication when no PR exists.
• --auto — autonomous mode (propagated from /cook --auto). Bypasses the user-selection step. Must be paired with --stake <floor> to set the inclusion threshold; /cook --auto always passes --stake medium+. See references/selection.md for the auto-selection rules and ## Auto mode below for the pass-cap and revert behaviour.
• --stake <floor> — used only with --auto. Severity floor: blocker, high, medium+, or all. Floor definitions and the medium+ cheap-lows rule: references/selection.md § Auto-mode selection. Without --auto this flag is ignored.
• --hard — propagate the metacognitive-gate flag to terminal /plate; see ## --hard mode.

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.

Flow

1. Load — read the findings (markdown, not JSON sidecars).

2. Select — adopt any pre-locked handoff from /age//affinage; otherwise apply the recommended composite. See references/selection.md for the default rule, recognized verbs, and gate conditions. To expand a user-supplied verb to finding ids:

   python3 shared/scripts/findings_cli.py parse-selection --report <path> --selection "<verb>"
   

   If the host only ships the bundle, python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/common.pyz findings_cli parse-selection ... is the fallback.

3. Apply — fix one logical group at a time: re-confirm the anchor through a fresh bounded read, then apply a stale-safe write from a compatible backend family.

4. Validate — run the narrowest tests that prove each fix, then any relevant project-wide gates (lint, typecheck, build). When the handoff carries a recorded baseline: block, classify gate failures against it per ../cook/references/quality-gates.md: identical failures do not block a clean cure or trigger a halt; only new or changed failures are cure's to fix.

5. Taste-test (behavioural fixes only) — if this cure applied a behavioural fix (touched production logic or public surface), run the fresh-context taste-test before the handoff slug: dispatch the read-only reviewer phase-agent (named, no call-site model — its def pins model: opus) over the cure diff with the same lenses cook uses, or fall back to the inline self-check when no such reviewer sub-agent is available. Mechanical fixes — formatting, comment, import, no-logic rename — skip this and keep the current flow. Pipe any revise into a bounded corrective pass; a Locked-decision halt stops for a human. (A coder-nested cure cannot fan out; it defers the authoritative pass to the orchestrator.)

6. Domain-model correction (diff-touched terms only) — after the cook's fixes land, correct the project domain model (ubiquitous language) for terms touched by the cook's diff (bounded — diff-touched terms only, never a free rewrite). Resolve the store with domain_model_target() (shared/scripts/paths.py, read-probe cascade wiki → docs → XDG; an existing model always wins). For a diff-touched entry whose definition or _Code_: referent no longer matches the code, update it and write a one-line change note per edit (entry format: **Term** — definition. / _Avoid_: syn1, syn2 / _Code_: file:line (or NEW ENTITY)). HARD rule — flag, don't reverse: if a correction would REVERSE a mold-decided canonical term (replace the term mold made authoritative, or contradict its definition), do not rewrite — flag it to the user (the term, mold's decision, the conflict) and leave the entry unchanged. mold DECIDES canonical terms at curdle; cure only APPLIES BOUNDED corrections and never overrules the authoritative writer.

7. Re-review hand-off — recommend /age --scope <touched-path> so review runs through the proper skill rather than reimplementing it inline. /cure does not re-grade its own work. If the user picks re-age, the resulting report can feed a fresh /cure invocation.

8. Ship report — what changed, checks run, deferred items, residual risks. Write the handoff slug at the top of .cheese/cure/<slug>.md (see ## Handoff slug below) so the chain (and /cook's fan pathway) can read the outcome without re-parsing the full report.

9. Plate / hand off — on a clean cure, dispatch /plate per ## Handoff.

Preferred tools and fallbacks

Call source-code search, read, and write backends directly according to code-intelligence-routing.md.

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

Need	Prefer	Fallback
Understanding findings	/age report plus touched diff/test context	diff, touched files, tests
CI and PR context	gh	local test output or user-provided logs
Diffs	delta	plain git diff
Conflict resolution	mergiraf	manual resolution with targeted tests
Code navigation	semantic symbol search, then caller search	LSP or bounded native search; report precision loss
Read before edit	fresh bounded read from the write backend family	another snapshot-capable bounded read; re-read if anchors are incompatible

If a preferred tool is missing, continue with the fallback. If a missing tool prevents safe application, stop and explain the blocker.

Validation

Run the narrowest tests that prove the fix, then any relevant existing wider gates. If a gate is unavailable, record why. Do not declare ready when selected findings remain unresolved.

Applied requires its proving test green (Iron Law — see references/cure-discipline.md).

clean cure — ≥1 fix applied, all gates green (identical recorded baseline: failures don't count against green — see ../cook/references/quality-gates.md), no false-premise halt. To map the post-cure gate booleans to a readiness verdict (agent judges the booleans; the CLI maps them):

python3 shared/scripts/gates_cli.py classify \
  --press-status <label> \
  [--hard-floor-met] [--has-open-level-1-or-2] [--has-open-level-3] [--has-open-level-4-or-5] [--any-spinning]

If the host only ships the bundle, python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/common.pyz gates_cli classify ... is the fallback.

Handoff slug

Write the cure report to .cheese/cure/<slug>.md with a minimum handoff slug at the top so /cook's fan pathway and /cheese --continue can chain without re-parsing the full report:

status: ok | halt: <one-line reason>
next: age | done
artifact: <path-if-any>
baseline: none | <recorded baseline block copied from the upstream handoff — see ../cook/references/quality-gates.md>
<one-line orientation: what cure applied or deferred>

status: ok when at least one finding applied cleanly (or no findings met the severity floor in --auto mode); status: halt: <reason> when every selected fix failed the revert/keep evaluation or a project-wide gate cannot be made green. next: is age whenever re-review should follow — that is the autonomous-chain default and the standard interactive recommendation. next: is done only when invoked interactively without --auto and the user explicitly opts out of re-review. Cure does not track which pass it is on; the two-cure-pass cap is enforced by /age --auto's third invocation, not by cure.

Output

Cross-cutting house style and citation form: ../cheese/references/formatting.md.

The cure report body lives below the handoff slug in the same file at .cheese/cure/<slug>.md:

## Cure Report

### Applied
- <finding>: <fix summary>

### Deferred
- <finding>: <reason>

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

### Re-review
- Remaining risk:
- Suggested next step: `/age --scope <touched-path>` to verify the fixes, or `/plate` to commit/publish.

Handoff

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

After the cure report is rendered, cure decides whether to dispatch /plate or ask. On a clean cure (see Validation), the default carries work to an already-open PR without another gate. --safe re-introduces the handoff gate.

When the run was chained from /affinage (handoff_context.source_skill: /affinage), cure never dispatches /plate — it applies its fixes, runs the auto-mode /age --scope loop where applicable, and returns so /affinage can post its GitHub replies (final writes) before owning terminal /plate.

Default (no --safe) — plate the work:

• Detect an open PR with gh pr view. If one exists, dispatch /plate to run its final writing gate, validation, named-file commit, topology-aware update, and publication. Rule 11 authorizes the update. Propagate --hard; /plate gives /hard-cheese the final artifact state before publishing.
• If no open PR exists: with --open-pr, dispatch /plate [--hard]; explicit topology choices and obviously cohesive work proceed without asking, while stack-sized or ambiguous work asks before commit or branch-layout mutation. Without --open-pr, leave the remote untouched and finish with no open PR — pass --open-pr or run /plate.
• After /plate's publication lands, run the § Post-PR learnings write-back below.
• If the cure was not clean, do not dispatch /plate; mention the blocker and stop.

--safe — ask via the shared handoff gate in ../cheese/references/handoff-gate.md. Default options:

• Re-review the touched code (recommended when fixes escaped the finding hunk) — /age --scope <touched-path>.
• Plate it — commit and open or update the PR — /plate [--hard].
• Checkpoint & stop — /wheypoint.
• Stop — dispatch none.

Pre-select Plate it only when all selected findings applied cleanly and gates passed. Never dispatch before selection; run the selected command immediately.

Post-PR learnings write-back

After any path that publishes to a PR — the default /plate dispatch, an --open-pr new PR, the --safe Plate it selection, or the auto-mode terminal publication — record the session's implementation-time learnings to the wiki. This is the second wiki write moment; curdle owns the design-time write, this owns what only surfaces while building: constraints discovered in /cook, /age findings that changed the design, and any domain terms the diff introduced or redefined.

• Candidates — upstream durable_flags + new-since-curdle ADRs. Read durable_flags: from the upstream /cook and /age handoff slugs (.cheese/cook/<slug>.md, .cheese/age/<slug>.md); every non-none line is a write-back candidate alongside the new ADRs + domain-model deltas. Upstream phases record flags only — cure/plate/affinage remain the only wiki writers.
• Writer — /wiki-ingest, detect-and-degrade. When the hallouminate plugin is available, dispatch /wiki-ingest with the candidate list above; its dedup/route/merge/contradiction handling ensures only rationale new since curdle lands (say "new since curdle" in the dispatch so it does not re-add design-time ADRs). When hallouminate is absent, write docs/adr/<slug>-NNN.md + the domain-model file fallback and emit a loud one-line note that the write-back went to files, not the wiki — never a silent degrade. Detection and the degrade contract: ../cheese/references/optional-plugins.md.
• Every publication path. Fires from the frame that dispatched terminal /plate — manual cook→cure and --auto alike — after publication lands.
• Publication-owner exception. When cure does not own terminal /plate — the /cook fan-pathway no-publish cases below, or the /affinage chain where affinage owns terminal /plate — cure does not write back; the skill that owns the /plate dispatch owns the write-back at its publish boundary.
• Nothing to record — all upstream durable_flags are none (or absent), no new ADR-worthy decision, and no domain-model delta — skip with a one-line "no post-PR learnings" note. Do not manufacture an entry.

[TBD] The write-back trigger lives at this cure boundary today; /plate (the dedicated commit/PR skill) now exists, so the deferred follow-up is to move the trigger onto /plate so publication and learnings-capture are wired at one seam (see the post-pr-wiki-writeback wiki page). Upstream durable_flags feed whichever skill owns this single publish-boundary write, so if the trigger moves to /plate, flag consumption moves with it.

--hard mode

/cure --hard propagates --hard to /plate at the share-for-review boundary. /plate first completes and verifies every durable write, then gives /hard-cheese that final artifact inventory and proceeds only on pass. Re-review, checkpoint, and stop choices do not fire the gate. The mechanism lives in skills/hard-cheese/SKILL.md; composition details live in ../hard-cheese/references/composition.md.

Auto mode

When invoked with --auto --stake <floor>:

• Skip the selection-list rendering and the handoff gate.
• Auto-select every finding that meets the severity floor. Floor definitions: references/selection.md § Auto-mode selection.
• Apply findings one at a time. After each fix, run the narrowest test that proves it. If the fix breaks a previously-passing test or any project-wide gate, revert that single finding's edit and record it under ### Deferred in the cure report with the test name and the failure summary. Continue with the remaining findings.
• After all selected findings are processed, skip the handoff gate and invoke /age --scope <touched-paths> --auto (forward --open-pr when it is in scope) so the chain can re-review.
• /age --auto enforces the two-pass cap. Cure does not need to track passes itself — it just keeps applying when invoked.
• Terminal publication. When the age child returns next: done, dispatch /plate once. It updates an existing PR automatically or, with --open-pr, applies the explicit-choice and review-shape policy before committing a new PR layout. After the publication lands, run the § Post-PR learnings write-back in ## Handoff.
• Orchestrated sub-agent exception. A phase-only cure dispatched by /cook's fan pathway never invokes /plate; the orchestrator owns commit and publication.
• /affinage chain exception. When handoff_context.source_skill is /affinage, suppress this terminal /plate — affinage posts its GitHub replies (final writes) and then owns terminal /plate.

--auto --hard puncture clause. When age returns next: done, dispatch /plate --hard rather than firing /hard-cheese directly. /plate's final writing gate makes the completed artifact inventory visible to the metacognitive check. A failed hard gate halts publication; a non-TTY environment reports that --hard needs an interactive TTY.

If no findings meet the floor, write an empty cure report with ### Applied: (none — no findings meet <floor>) and skip straight to the auto handoff with a one-line "auto chain clean" note.

Within cook's own fan pathway (single-curd chain or a wave curd)

When /cook's fan pathway (its retired-/ultracook mechanics, now self-hosted — see skills/cook/SKILL.md ## Fan pathway) spawns cure as a phase-only sub-agent and owns the chain itself, honour the no-chain / no-push override:

• Single-curd chain — the spawn prompt says "for THIS PHASE ONLY" and "do not chain forward to the next phase." Apply the auto-selected findings, write .cheese/cure/<slug>.md (handoff slug at the top, next: age), and stop. Do not invoke /age --scope <touched-paths> --auto. The orchestrator reads the cure slug and spawns the next age itself.
• Wave curd worker — apply findings, write the cure slug, and stop. Do not invoke /plate or touch the remote; the fan pathway owns final commit and publication.

In both cases terminal /plate dispatch is suppressed — the orchestrator owns it.

Rules

• Default to the recommended composite (all-medium, cheap), or the selection /age / /affinage locked in. --safe re-introduces the selection gate. A finding resting on a false premise, or a sprawling/structural fix, still pauses for a decision regardless of mode.
• Keep fixes scoped to selected (or auto-selected) findings.
• Do not re-halt or re-flag gate failures identical to the handoff's recorded baseline: block; only new or changed failures are cure's to fix — see ../cook/references/quality-gates.md.
• Do not hide failed or skipped checks. In auto mode, reverted findings go under ### Deferred, never silently dropped.
• Publication contract — existing PR authorization, --open-pr, --safe, and never publishing an unclean cure: see ## Handoff.
• If a selected finding rests on a false premise (the /age claim is wrong, or the diff already addresses it), stop and surface the premise before applying. Disagreeing with the report is allowed; silently working around it is not.
• Apply the shared voice kernel (lives at ../age/references/voice.md): lead the cure report with what was applied, flag residual risk as certain | speculating | don't know, agree when the diff is fine without manufacturing follow-ups.
• Verification before status: ok: before writing status: ok in the handoff slug, (1) identify the gate command, (2) run it fresh in the same turn, (3) read the full output, (4) only then claim. Hedging words (should, probably, I think) are banned in completion claims — state what the gate output showed, not what you expect it to show.

Discipline

Iron Law, Red Flags, and the fix-application Rationalization table live in references/cure-discipline.md.

Agent resolution

Resolve fix application through ../cheese/references/agent-resolution.md.

Work	Preferred types	Permissions/isolation	Minimum power	Effort	Fallback
Apply selected findings	coder	write, isolated-worktree	default	high	compatible coder, then general

The canonical cure handoff carries the shared agent_resolution block.