…d iterations

Based on three live test runs against 346 agent-created skills on the
author's own setup (~6.5 min, opus-4.7, 86 API calls), the curator
prompt needed three sharpenings before it consistently produced real
umbrella consolidation instead of passive audit output:

**Umbrella-first framing.** The original 'decide keep/patch/archive/
consolidate' framing lets opus default to 'keep' whenever two skills
aren't byte-identical. The new prompt explicitly tells the reviewer
that pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar — the right question is
'would a human maintainer write this as N separate skills, or one
skill with N labeled subsections?' Expect 10-25 prefix clusters; merge
each into an umbrella via one of three methods.

**Three concrete consolidation methods.** (a) Merge into an existing
umbrella (patch the broadest skill, archive siblings); (b) Create a
new umbrella SKILL.md (skill_manage action=create); (c) Demote
session-specific detail into references/, templates/, or scripts/
under the umbrella via skill_manage action=write_file, then archive
the narrow sibling. This matches the support-file vocabulary the
review-prompt side already uses (PR #17213).

**Two observed bailouts pre-empted:** 'usage counters are zero so I
can't judge' (rule 4: judge on content, not use_count) and 'each has
a distinct trigger' (rule 5: pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar).

**Config-aware parent inheritance.** _run_llm_review() was building
AIAgent() without explicit provider/model, hitting an auto-resolve
path that returned empty credentials → HTTP 400 'No models provided'
against OpenRouter. Fork now inherits the user's main provider and
model (via load_config + resolve_runtime_provider) before spawning —
runs on whatever the user is currently on, OAuth-backed or
pool-backed included.

**Unbounded iteration ceiling.** max_iterations=8 was way too low for
an umbrella-build pass over hundreds of skills. A live pass takes
50-100 API calls (scanning, clustering, skill_view'ing candidates,
patching umbrellas, mv'ing siblings). Raised to 9999 — the natural
stopping criterion is 'no more clusters worth processing', not an
arbitrary tool-call budget.

**Tests updated:** test_curator_review_prompt_has_invariants accepts
DO NOT / MUST NOT and drops 'keep' from the required-verb set (the
umbrella-first prompt correctly deemphasizes 'keep' as a first-class
decision label since passive keep-everything is the failure mode
being prevented). Added test_curator_review_prompt_is_umbrella_first
asserting the umbrella framing, class-level thinking, references/
+ templates/ + scripts/ support-file mentions, and the 'use_count
is not evidence of value' pre-emption. Added
test_curator_review_prompt_offers_support_file_actions asserting
skill_manage action=create and action=write_file are both named.

**Live validation on author's setup:**
- Run 1 (old prompt): 3 archives, stopped after surveying — typical passive outcome
- Run 2 (consolidation prompt): 44 archives, 3 patches, surfaced the 50-skill mlops reorg duplicate bug but didn't umbrella
- Run 3 (this prompt): 249 archives + 18 new class-level umbrellas created, reducing agent-created skills from 346 → 118 with every archived skill's content preserved as references/ under its umbrella. Pinned skill untouched. Full report in PR description.

…riants (NousResearch#17213)

The background skill-review prompts (_SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT and the **Skills**
half of _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT) steered the reviewer toward passive
behavior — most passes concluded 'Nothing to save.' even when the session
produced real lessons. User-preference corrections (style, format,
legibility, verbosity) were especially lost: they were read as memory
signals only, so skills never carried the fix.

This rewrite changes the stance:

- **Active-update bias.** The reviewer now treats inaction as a missed
  learning opportunity. 'Nothing to save.' remains an explicit escape
  but is no longer framed as the most-common outcome.

- **User-preference corrections are first-class skill signals.** Style,
  tone, format, legibility, verbosity complaints — and the actual
  phrasings users use ('stop doing X', 'this is too verbose', 'I hate
  when you Y', 'remember this') — now warrant patching the skill that
  governs the task, not just writing to memory.

- **Loaded-skill-first preference order.** When a skill was loaded via
  /skill-name or skill_view during the session, the reviewer patches
  THAT one first. It was in play; it's the right place.

- **Four-step ladder: patch-loaded → patch-umbrella → support-file →
  create.** Support files are explicitly enumerated as three kinds:
    * references/<topic>.md — session-specific detail OR condensed
      knowledge banks (quoted research, API docs excerpts, domain notes)
    * templates/<name>.<ext> — starter files to copy and modify
    * scripts/<name>.<ext>  — statically re-runnable actions

- **Name-veto for CREATE.** New skill names MUST be class-level — no PR
  numbers, error strings, codenames, library-alone names, or session
  artifacts ('fix-X / debug-Y / audit-Z-today'). If the proposed name
  only fits today's task, fall back to one of the patch/support-file
  options.

- **Memory scope clarified.** 'who the user is and what the current
  situation and state of your operations are' — MEMORY.md is
  situational/state, USER.md is identity/preferences.

- **Curator handoff.** Reviewer flags overlap; the background curator
  handles consolidation at scale. Single-session reviewer doesn't
  attempt umbrella-rebalancing.

Tests: tests/run_agent/test_review_prompt_class_first.py upgraded to
assert the new behavioral contracts (active bias, user-correction
signals, loaded-skill-first, support-file kinds, name-veto, memory
framing, curator handoff). 17 tests, all pass.

Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>

…d iterations

Based on three live test runs against 346 agent-created skills on the
author's own setup (~6.5 min, opus-4.7, 86 API calls), the curator
prompt needed three sharpenings before it consistently produced real
umbrella consolidation instead of passive audit output:

**Umbrella-first framing.** The original 'decide keep/patch/archive/
consolidate' framing lets opus default to 'keep' whenever two skills
aren't byte-identical. The new prompt explicitly tells the reviewer
that pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar — the right question is
'would a human maintainer write this as N separate skills, or one
skill with N labeled subsections?' Expect 10-25 prefix clusters; merge
each into an umbrella via one of three methods.

**Three concrete consolidation methods.** (a) Merge into an existing
umbrella (patch the broadest skill, archive siblings); (b) Create a
new umbrella SKILL.md (skill_manage action=create); (c) Demote
session-specific detail into references/, templates/, or scripts/
under the umbrella via skill_manage action=write_file, then archive
the narrow sibling. This matches the support-file vocabulary the
review-prompt side already uses (PR NousResearch#17213).

**Two observed bailouts pre-empted:** 'usage counters are zero so I
can't judge' (rule 4: judge on content, not use_count) and 'each has
a distinct trigger' (rule 5: pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar).

**Config-aware parent inheritance.** _run_llm_review() was building
AIAgent() without explicit provider/model, hitting an auto-resolve
path that returned empty credentials → HTTP 400 'No models provided'
against OpenRouter. Fork now inherits the user's main provider and
model (via load_config + resolve_runtime_provider) before spawning —
runs on whatever the user is currently on, OAuth-backed or
pool-backed included.

**Unbounded iteration ceiling.** max_iterations=8 was way too low for
an umbrella-build pass over hundreds of skills. A live pass takes
50-100 API calls (scanning, clustering, skill_view'ing candidates,
patching umbrellas, mv'ing siblings). Raised to 9999 — the natural
stopping criterion is 'no more clusters worth processing', not an
arbitrary tool-call budget.

**Tests updated:** test_curator_review_prompt_has_invariants accepts
DO NOT / MUST NOT and drops 'keep' from the required-verb set (the
umbrella-first prompt correctly deemphasizes 'keep' as a first-class
decision label since passive keep-everything is the failure mode
being prevented). Added test_curator_review_prompt_is_umbrella_first
asserting the umbrella framing, class-level thinking, references/
+ templates/ + scripts/ support-file mentions, and the 'use_count
is not evidence of value' pre-emption. Added
test_curator_review_prompt_offers_support_file_actions asserting
skill_manage action=create and action=write_file are both named.

**Live validation on author's setup:**
- Run 1 (old prompt): 3 archives, stopped after surveying — typical passive outcome
- Run 2 (consolidation prompt): 44 archives, 3 patches, surfaced the 50-skill mlops reorg duplicate bug but didn't umbrella
- Run 3 (this prompt): 249 archives + 18 new class-level umbrellas created, reducing agent-created skills from 346 → 118 with every archived skill's content preserved as references/ under its umbrella. Pinned skill untouched. Full report in PR description.

…riants (NousResearch#17213)

The background skill-review prompts (_SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT and the **Skills**
half of _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT) steered the reviewer toward passive
behavior — most passes concluded 'Nothing to save.' even when the session
produced real lessons. User-preference corrections (style, format,
legibility, verbosity) were especially lost: they were read as memory
signals only, so skills never carried the fix.

This rewrite changes the stance:

- **Active-update bias.** The reviewer now treats inaction as a missed
  learning opportunity. 'Nothing to save.' remains an explicit escape
  but is no longer framed as the most-common outcome.

- **User-preference corrections are first-class skill signals.** Style,
  tone, format, legibility, verbosity complaints — and the actual
  phrasings users use ('stop doing X', 'this is too verbose', 'I hate
  when you Y', 'remember this') — now warrant patching the skill that
  governs the task, not just writing to memory.

- **Loaded-skill-first preference order.** When a skill was loaded via
  /skill-name or skill_view during the session, the reviewer patches
  THAT one first. It was in play; it's the right place.

- **Four-step ladder: patch-loaded → patch-umbrella → support-file →
  create.** Support files are explicitly enumerated as three kinds:
    * references/<topic>.md — session-specific detail OR condensed
      knowledge banks (quoted research, API docs excerpts, domain notes)
    * templates/<name>.<ext> — starter files to copy and modify
    * scripts/<name>.<ext>  — statically re-runnable actions

- **Name-veto for CREATE.** New skill names MUST be class-level — no PR
  numbers, error strings, codenames, library-alone names, or session
  artifacts ('fix-X / debug-Y / audit-Z-today'). If the proposed name
  only fits today's task, fall back to one of the patch/support-file
  options.

- **Memory scope clarified.** 'who the user is and what the current
  situation and state of your operations are' — MEMORY.md is
  situational/state, USER.md is identity/preferences.

- **Curator handoff.** Reviewer flags overlap; the background curator
  handles consolidation at scale. Single-session reviewer doesn't
  attempt umbrella-rebalancing.

Tests: tests/run_agent/test_review_prompt_class_first.py upgraded to
assert the new behavioral contracts (active bias, user-correction
signals, loaded-skill-first, support-file kinds, name-veto, memory
framing, curator handoff). 17 tests, all pass.

Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>

…d iterations

Based on three live test runs against 346 agent-created skills on the
author's own setup (~6.5 min, opus-4.7, 86 API calls), the curator
prompt needed three sharpenings before it consistently produced real
umbrella consolidation instead of passive audit output:

**Umbrella-first framing.** The original 'decide keep/patch/archive/
consolidate' framing lets opus default to 'keep' whenever two skills
aren't byte-identical. The new prompt explicitly tells the reviewer
that pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar — the right question is
'would a human maintainer write this as N separate skills, or one
skill with N labeled subsections?' Expect 10-25 prefix clusters; merge
each into an umbrella via one of three methods.

**Three concrete consolidation methods.** (a) Merge into an existing
umbrella (patch the broadest skill, archive siblings); (b) Create a
new umbrella SKILL.md (skill_manage action=create); (c) Demote
session-specific detail into references/, templates/, or scripts/
under the umbrella via skill_manage action=write_file, then archive
the narrow sibling. This matches the support-file vocabulary the
review-prompt side already uses (PR NousResearch#17213).

**Two observed bailouts pre-empted:** 'usage counters are zero so I
can't judge' (rule 4: judge on content, not use_count) and 'each has
a distinct trigger' (rule 5: pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar).

**Config-aware parent inheritance.** _run_llm_review() was building
AIAgent() without explicit provider/model, hitting an auto-resolve
path that returned empty credentials → HTTP 400 'No models provided'
against OpenRouter. Fork now inherits the user's main provider and
model (via load_config + resolve_runtime_provider) before spawning —
runs on whatever the user is currently on, OAuth-backed or
pool-backed included.

**Unbounded iteration ceiling.** max_iterations=8 was way too low for
an umbrella-build pass over hundreds of skills. A live pass takes
50-100 API calls (scanning, clustering, skill_view'ing candidates,
patching umbrellas, mv'ing siblings). Raised to 9999 — the natural
stopping criterion is 'no more clusters worth processing', not an
arbitrary tool-call budget.

**Tests updated:** test_curator_review_prompt_has_invariants accepts
DO NOT / MUST NOT and drops 'keep' from the required-verb set (the
umbrella-first prompt correctly deemphasizes 'keep' as a first-class
decision label since passive keep-everything is the failure mode
being prevented). Added test_curator_review_prompt_is_umbrella_first
asserting the umbrella framing, class-level thinking, references/
+ templates/ + scripts/ support-file mentions, and the 'use_count
is not evidence of value' pre-emption. Added
test_curator_review_prompt_offers_support_file_actions asserting
skill_manage action=create and action=write_file are both named.

**Live validation on author's setup:**
- Run 1 (old prompt): 3 archives, stopped after surveying — typical passive outcome
- Run 2 (consolidation prompt): 44 archives, 3 patches, surfaced the 50-skill mlops reorg duplicate bug but didn't umbrella
- Run 3 (this prompt): 249 archives + 18 new class-level umbrellas created, reducing agent-created skills from 346 → 118 with every archived skill's content preserved as references/ under its umbrella. Pinned skill untouched. Full report in PR description.

…riants (NousResearch#17213)

The background skill-review prompts (_SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT and the **Skills**
half of _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT) steered the reviewer toward passive
behavior — most passes concluded 'Nothing to save.' even when the session
produced real lessons. User-preference corrections (style, format,
legibility, verbosity) were especially lost: they were read as memory
signals only, so skills never carried the fix.

This rewrite changes the stance:

- **Active-update bias.** The reviewer now treats inaction as a missed
  learning opportunity. 'Nothing to save.' remains an explicit escape
  but is no longer framed as the most-common outcome.

- **User-preference corrections are first-class skill signals.** Style,
  tone, format, legibility, verbosity complaints — and the actual
  phrasings users use ('stop doing X', 'this is too verbose', 'I hate
  when you Y', 'remember this') — now warrant patching the skill that
  governs the task, not just writing to memory.

- **Loaded-skill-first preference order.** When a skill was loaded via
  /skill-name or skill_view during the session, the reviewer patches
  THAT one first. It was in play; it's the right place.

- **Four-step ladder: patch-loaded → patch-umbrella → support-file →
  create.** Support files are explicitly enumerated as three kinds:
    * references/<topic>.md — session-specific detail OR condensed
      knowledge banks (quoted research, API docs excerpts, domain notes)
    * templates/<name>.<ext> — starter files to copy and modify
    * scripts/<name>.<ext>  — statically re-runnable actions

- **Name-veto for CREATE.** New skill names MUST be class-level — no PR
  numbers, error strings, codenames, library-alone names, or session
  artifacts ('fix-X / debug-Y / audit-Z-today'). If the proposed name
  only fits today's task, fall back to one of the patch/support-file
  options.

- **Memory scope clarified.** 'who the user is and what the current
  situation and state of your operations are' — MEMORY.md is
  situational/state, USER.md is identity/preferences.

- **Curator handoff.** Reviewer flags overlap; the background curator
  handles consolidation at scale. Single-session reviewer doesn't
  attempt umbrella-rebalancing.

Tests: tests/run_agent/test_review_prompt_class_first.py upgraded to
assert the new behavioral contracts (active bias, user-correction
signals, loaded-skill-first, support-file kinds, name-veto, memory
framing, curator handoff). 17 tests, all pass.

Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>

…d iterations

Based on three live test runs against 346 agent-created skills on the
author's own setup (~6.5 min, opus-4.7, 86 API calls), the curator
prompt needed three sharpenings before it consistently produced real
umbrella consolidation instead of passive audit output:

**Umbrella-first framing.** The original 'decide keep/patch/archive/
consolidate' framing lets opus default to 'keep' whenever two skills
aren't byte-identical. The new prompt explicitly tells the reviewer
that pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar — the right question is
'would a human maintainer write this as N separate skills, or one
skill with N labeled subsections?' Expect 10-25 prefix clusters; merge
each into an umbrella via one of three methods.

**Three concrete consolidation methods.** (a) Merge into an existing
umbrella (patch the broadest skill, archive siblings); (b) Create a
new umbrella SKILL.md (skill_manage action=create); (c) Demote
session-specific detail into references/, templates/, or scripts/
under the umbrella via skill_manage action=write_file, then archive
the narrow sibling. This matches the support-file vocabulary the
review-prompt side already uses (PR NousResearch#17213).

**Two observed bailouts pre-empted:** 'usage counters are zero so I
can't judge' (rule 4: judge on content, not use_count) and 'each has
a distinct trigger' (rule 5: pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar).

**Config-aware parent inheritance.** _run_llm_review() was building
AIAgent() without explicit provider/model, hitting an auto-resolve
path that returned empty credentials → HTTP 400 'No models provided'
against OpenRouter. Fork now inherits the user's main provider and
model (via load_config + resolve_runtime_provider) before spawning —
runs on whatever the user is currently on, OAuth-backed or
pool-backed included.

**Unbounded iteration ceiling.** max_iterations=8 was way too low for
an umbrella-build pass over hundreds of skills. A live pass takes
50-100 API calls (scanning, clustering, skill_view'ing candidates,
patching umbrellas, mv'ing siblings). Raised to 9999 — the natural
stopping criterion is 'no more clusters worth processing', not an
arbitrary tool-call budget.

**Tests updated:** test_curator_review_prompt_has_invariants accepts
DO NOT / MUST NOT and drops 'keep' from the required-verb set (the
umbrella-first prompt correctly deemphasizes 'keep' as a first-class
decision label since passive keep-everything is the failure mode
being prevented). Added test_curator_review_prompt_is_umbrella_first
asserting the umbrella framing, class-level thinking, references/
+ templates/ + scripts/ support-file mentions, and the 'use_count
is not evidence of value' pre-emption. Added
test_curator_review_prompt_offers_support_file_actions asserting
skill_manage action=create and action=write_file are both named.

**Live validation on author's setup:**
- Run 1 (old prompt): 3 archives, stopped after surveying — typical passive outcome
- Run 2 (consolidation prompt): 44 archives, 3 patches, surfaced the 50-skill mlops reorg duplicate bug but didn't umbrella
- Run 3 (this prompt): 249 archives + 18 new class-level umbrellas created, reducing agent-created skills from 346 → 118 with every archived skill's content preserved as references/ under its umbrella. Pinned skill untouched. Full report in PR description.

…riants (NousResearch#17213)

The background skill-review prompts (_SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT and the **Skills**
half of _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT) steered the reviewer toward passive
behavior — most passes concluded 'Nothing to save.' even when the session
produced real lessons. User-preference corrections (style, format,
legibility, verbosity) were especially lost: they were read as memory
signals only, so skills never carried the fix.

This rewrite changes the stance:

- **Active-update bias.** The reviewer now treats inaction as a missed
  learning opportunity. 'Nothing to save.' remains an explicit escape
  but is no longer framed as the most-common outcome.

- **User-preference corrections are first-class skill signals.** Style,
  tone, format, legibility, verbosity complaints — and the actual
  phrasings users use ('stop doing X', 'this is too verbose', 'I hate
  when you Y', 'remember this') — now warrant patching the skill that
  governs the task, not just writing to memory.

- **Loaded-skill-first preference order.** When a skill was loaded via
  /skill-name or skill_view during the session, the reviewer patches
  THAT one first. It was in play; it's the right place.

- **Four-step ladder: patch-loaded → patch-umbrella → support-file →
  create.** Support files are explicitly enumerated as three kinds:
    * references/<topic>.md — session-specific detail OR condensed
      knowledge banks (quoted research, API docs excerpts, domain notes)
    * templates/<name>.<ext> — starter files to copy and modify
    * scripts/<name>.<ext>  — statically re-runnable actions

- **Name-veto for CREATE.** New skill names MUST be class-level — no PR
  numbers, error strings, codenames, library-alone names, or session
  artifacts ('fix-X / debug-Y / audit-Z-today'). If the proposed name
  only fits today's task, fall back to one of the patch/support-file
  options.

- **Memory scope clarified.** 'who the user is and what the current
  situation and state of your operations are' — MEMORY.md is
  situational/state, USER.md is identity/preferences.

- **Curator handoff.** Reviewer flags overlap; the background curator
  handles consolidation at scale. Single-session reviewer doesn't
  attempt umbrella-rebalancing.

Tests: tests/run_agent/test_review_prompt_class_first.py upgraded to
assert the new behavioral contracts (active bias, user-correction
signals, loaded-skill-first, support-file kinds, name-veto, memory
framing, curator handoff). 17 tests, all pass.

Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>

…d iterations

Based on three live test runs against 346 agent-created skills on the
author's own setup (~6.5 min, opus-4.7, 86 API calls), the curator
prompt needed three sharpenings before it consistently produced real
umbrella consolidation instead of passive audit output:

**Umbrella-first framing.** The original 'decide keep/patch/archive/
consolidate' framing lets opus default to 'keep' whenever two skills
aren't byte-identical. The new prompt explicitly tells the reviewer
that pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar — the right question is
'would a human maintainer write this as N separate skills, or one
skill with N labeled subsections?' Expect 10-25 prefix clusters; merge
each into an umbrella via one of three methods.

**Three concrete consolidation methods.** (a) Merge into an existing
umbrella (patch the broadest skill, archive siblings); (b) Create a
new umbrella SKILL.md (skill_manage action=create); (c) Demote
session-specific detail into references/, templates/, or scripts/
under the umbrella via skill_manage action=write_file, then archive
the narrow sibling. This matches the support-file vocabulary the
review-prompt side already uses (PR NousResearch#17213).

**Two observed bailouts pre-empted:** 'usage counters are zero so I
can't judge' (rule 4: judge on content, not use_count) and 'each has
a distinct trigger' (rule 5: pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar).

**Config-aware parent inheritance.** _run_llm_review() was building
AIAgent() without explicit provider/model, hitting an auto-resolve
path that returned empty credentials → HTTP 400 'No models provided'
against OpenRouter. Fork now inherits the user's main provider and
model (via load_config + resolve_runtime_provider) before spawning —
runs on whatever the user is currently on, OAuth-backed or
pool-backed included.

**Unbounded iteration ceiling.** max_iterations=8 was way too low for
an umbrella-build pass over hundreds of skills. A live pass takes
50-100 API calls (scanning, clustering, skill_view'ing candidates,
patching umbrellas, mv'ing siblings). Raised to 9999 — the natural
stopping criterion is 'no more clusters worth processing', not an
arbitrary tool-call budget.

**Tests updated:** test_curator_review_prompt_has_invariants accepts
DO NOT / MUST NOT and drops 'keep' from the required-verb set (the
umbrella-first prompt correctly deemphasizes 'keep' as a first-class
decision label since passive keep-everything is the failure mode
being prevented). Added test_curator_review_prompt_is_umbrella_first
asserting the umbrella framing, class-level thinking, references/
+ templates/ + scripts/ support-file mentions, and the 'use_count
is not evidence of value' pre-emption. Added
test_curator_review_prompt_offers_support_file_actions asserting
skill_manage action=create and action=write_file are both named.

**Live validation on author's setup:**
- Run 1 (old prompt): 3 archives, stopped after surveying — typical passive outcome
- Run 2 (consolidation prompt): 44 archives, 3 patches, surfaced the 50-skill mlops reorg duplicate bug but didn't umbrella
- Run 3 (this prompt): 249 archives + 18 new class-level umbrellas created, reducing agent-created skills from 346 → 118 with every archived skill's content preserved as references/ under its umbrella. Pinned skill untouched. Full report in PR description.

…riants (NousResearch#17213)

The background skill-review prompts (_SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT and the **Skills**
half of _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT) steered the reviewer toward passive
behavior — most passes concluded 'Nothing to save.' even when the session
produced real lessons. User-preference corrections (style, format,
legibility, verbosity) were especially lost: they were read as memory
signals only, so skills never carried the fix.

This rewrite changes the stance:

- **Active-update bias.** The reviewer now treats inaction as a missed
  learning opportunity. 'Nothing to save.' remains an explicit escape
  but is no longer framed as the most-common outcome.

- **User-preference corrections are first-class skill signals.** Style,
  tone, format, legibility, verbosity complaints — and the actual
  phrasings users use ('stop doing X', 'this is too verbose', 'I hate
  when you Y', 'remember this') — now warrant patching the skill that
  governs the task, not just writing to memory.

- **Loaded-skill-first preference order.** When a skill was loaded via
  /skill-name or skill_view during the session, the reviewer patches
  THAT one first. It was in play; it's the right place.

- **Four-step ladder: patch-loaded → patch-umbrella → support-file →
  create.** Support files are explicitly enumerated as three kinds:
    * references/<topic>.md — session-specific detail OR condensed
      knowledge banks (quoted research, API docs excerpts, domain notes)
    * templates/<name>.<ext> — starter files to copy and modify
    * scripts/<name>.<ext>  — statically re-runnable actions

- **Name-veto for CREATE.** New skill names MUST be class-level — no PR
  numbers, error strings, codenames, library-alone names, or session
  artifacts ('fix-X / debug-Y / audit-Z-today'). If the proposed name
  only fits today's task, fall back to one of the patch/support-file
  options.

- **Memory scope clarified.** 'who the user is and what the current
  situation and state of your operations are' — MEMORY.md is
  situational/state, USER.md is identity/preferences.

- **Curator handoff.** Reviewer flags overlap; the background curator
  handles consolidation at scale. Single-session reviewer doesn't
  attempt umbrella-rebalancing.

Tests: tests/run_agent/test_review_prompt_class_first.py upgraded to
assert the new behavioral contracts (active bias, user-correction
signals, loaded-skill-first, support-file kinds, name-veto, memory
framing, curator handoff). 17 tests, all pass.

Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>

…d iterations

Based on three live test runs against 346 agent-created skills on the
author's own setup (~6.5 min, opus-4.7, 86 API calls), the curator
prompt needed three sharpenings before it consistently produced real
umbrella consolidation instead of passive audit output:

**Umbrella-first framing.** The original 'decide keep/patch/archive/
consolidate' framing lets opus default to 'keep' whenever two skills
aren't byte-identical. The new prompt explicitly tells the reviewer
that pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar — the right question is
'would a human maintainer write this as N separate skills, or one
skill with N labeled subsections?' Expect 10-25 prefix clusters; merge
each into an umbrella via one of three methods.

**Three concrete consolidation methods.** (a) Merge into an existing
umbrella (patch the broadest skill, archive siblings); (b) Create a
new umbrella SKILL.md (skill_manage action=create); (c) Demote
session-specific detail into references/, templates/, or scripts/
under the umbrella via skill_manage action=write_file, then archive
the narrow sibling. This matches the support-file vocabulary the
review-prompt side already uses (PR NousResearch#17213).

**Two observed bailouts pre-empted:** 'usage counters are zero so I
can't judge' (rule 4: judge on content, not use_count) and 'each has
a distinct trigger' (rule 5: pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar).

**Config-aware parent inheritance.** _run_llm_review() was building
AIAgent() without explicit provider/model, hitting an auto-resolve
path that returned empty credentials → HTTP 400 'No models provided'
against OpenRouter. Fork now inherits the user's main provider and
model (via load_config + resolve_runtime_provider) before spawning —
runs on whatever the user is currently on, OAuth-backed or
pool-backed included.

**Unbounded iteration ceiling.** max_iterations=8 was way too low for
an umbrella-build pass over hundreds of skills. A live pass takes
50-100 API calls (scanning, clustering, skill_view'ing candidates,
patching umbrellas, mv'ing siblings). Raised to 9999 — the natural
stopping criterion is 'no more clusters worth processing', not an
arbitrary tool-call budget.

**Tests updated:** test_curator_review_prompt_has_invariants accepts
DO NOT / MUST NOT and drops 'keep' from the required-verb set (the
umbrella-first prompt correctly deemphasizes 'keep' as a first-class
decision label since passive keep-everything is the failure mode
being prevented). Added test_curator_review_prompt_is_umbrella_first
asserting the umbrella framing, class-level thinking, references/
+ templates/ + scripts/ support-file mentions, and the 'use_count
is not evidence of value' pre-emption. Added
test_curator_review_prompt_offers_support_file_actions asserting
skill_manage action=create and action=write_file are both named.

**Live validation on author's setup:**
- Run 1 (old prompt): 3 archives, stopped after surveying — typical passive outcome
- Run 2 (consolidation prompt): 44 archives, 3 patches, surfaced the 50-skill mlops reorg duplicate bug but didn't umbrella
- Run 3 (this prompt): 249 archives + 18 new class-level umbrellas created, reducing agent-created skills from 346 → 118 with every archived skill's content preserved as references/ under its umbrella. Pinned skill untouched. Full report in PR description.

…riants (NousResearch#17213)

The background skill-review prompts (_SKILL_REVIEW_PROMPT and the **Skills**
half of _COMBINED_REVIEW_PROMPT) steered the reviewer toward passive
behavior — most passes concluded 'Nothing to save.' even when the session
produced real lessons. User-preference corrections (style, format,
legibility, verbosity) were especially lost: they were read as memory
signals only, so skills never carried the fix.

This rewrite changes the stance:

- **Active-update bias.** The reviewer now treats inaction as a missed
  learning opportunity. 'Nothing to save.' remains an explicit escape
  but is no longer framed as the most-common outcome.

- **User-preference corrections are first-class skill signals.** Style,
  tone, format, legibility, verbosity complaints — and the actual
  phrasings users use ('stop doing X', 'this is too verbose', 'I hate
  when you Y', 'remember this') — now warrant patching the skill that
  governs the task, not just writing to memory.

- **Loaded-skill-first preference order.** When a skill was loaded via
  /skill-name or skill_view during the session, the reviewer patches
  THAT one first. It was in play; it's the right place.

- **Four-step ladder: patch-loaded → patch-umbrella → support-file →
  create.** Support files are explicitly enumerated as three kinds:
    * references/<topic>.md — session-specific detail OR condensed
      knowledge banks (quoted research, API docs excerpts, domain notes)
    * templates/<name>.<ext> — starter files to copy and modify
    * scripts/<name>.<ext>  — statically re-runnable actions

- **Name-veto for CREATE.** New skill names MUST be class-level — no PR
  numbers, error strings, codenames, library-alone names, or session
  artifacts ('fix-X / debug-Y / audit-Z-today'). If the proposed name
  only fits today's task, fall back to one of the patch/support-file
  options.

- **Memory scope clarified.** 'who the user is and what the current
  situation and state of your operations are' — MEMORY.md is
  situational/state, USER.md is identity/preferences.

- **Curator handoff.** Reviewer flags overlap; the background curator
  handles consolidation at scale. Single-session reviewer doesn't
  attempt umbrella-rebalancing.

Tests: tests/run_agent/test_review_prompt_class_first.py upgraded to
assert the new behavioral contracts (active bias, user-correction
signals, loaded-skill-first, support-file kinds, name-veto, memory
framing, curator handoff). 17 tests, all pass.

Co-authored-by: teknium1 <teknium@users.noreply.github.com>

…d iterations

Based on three live test runs against 346 agent-created skills on the
author's own setup (~6.5 min, opus-4.7, 86 API calls), the curator
prompt needed three sharpenings before it consistently produced real
umbrella consolidation instead of passive audit output:

**Umbrella-first framing.** The original 'decide keep/patch/archive/
consolidate' framing lets opus default to 'keep' whenever two skills
aren't byte-identical. The new prompt explicitly tells the reviewer
that pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar — the right question is
'would a human maintainer write this as N separate skills, or one
skill with N labeled subsections?' Expect 10-25 prefix clusters; merge
each into an umbrella via one of three methods.

**Three concrete consolidation methods.** (a) Merge into an existing
umbrella (patch the broadest skill, archive siblings); (b) Create a
new umbrella SKILL.md (skill_manage action=create); (c) Demote
session-specific detail into references/, templates/, or scripts/
under the umbrella via skill_manage action=write_file, then archive
the narrow sibling. This matches the support-file vocabulary the
review-prompt side already uses (PR NousResearch#17213).

**Two observed bailouts pre-empted:** 'usage counters are zero so I
can't judge' (rule 4: judge on content, not use_count) and 'each has
a distinct trigger' (rule 5: pairwise distinctness is the wrong bar).

**Config-aware parent inheritance.** _run_llm_review() was building
AIAgent() without explicit provider/model, hitting an auto-resolve
path that returned empty credentials → HTTP 400 'No models provided'
against OpenRouter. Fork now inherits the user's main provider and
model (via load_config + resolve_runtime_provider) before spawning —
runs on whatever the user is currently on, OAuth-backed or
pool-backed included.

**Unbounded iteration ceiling.** max_iterations=8 was way too low for
an umbrella-build pass over hundreds of skills. A live pass takes
50-100 API calls (scanning, clustering, skill_view'ing candidates,
patching umbrellas, mv'ing siblings). Raised to 9999 — the natural
stopping criterion is 'no more clusters worth processing', not an
arbitrary tool-call budget.

**Tests updated:** test_curator_review_prompt_has_invariants accepts
DO NOT / MUST NOT and drops 'keep' from the required-verb set (the
umbrella-first prompt correctly deemphasizes 'keep' as a first-class
decision label since passive keep-everything is the failure mode
being prevented). Added test_curator_review_prompt_is_umbrella_first
asserting the umbrella framing, class-level thinking, references/
+ templates/ + scripts/ support-file mentions, and the 'use_count
is not evidence of value' pre-emption. Added
test_curator_review_prompt_offers_support_file_actions asserting
skill_manage action=create and action=write_file are both named.

**Live validation on author's setup:**
- Run 1 (old prompt): 3 archives, stopped after surveying — typical passive outcome
- Run 2 (consolidation prompt): 44 archives, 3 patches, surfaced the 50-skill mlops reorg duplicate bug but didn't umbrella
- Run 3 (this prompt): 249 archives + 18 new class-level umbrellas created, reducing agent-created skills from 346 → 118 with every archived skill's content preserved as references/ under its umbrella. Pinned skill untouched. Full report in PR description.