/insight-cross-examine

Given a subject or a set of subjects, cross-examine routes by context to the right depth, discovers the angles and connections not yet visible, runs the insight battery (/insight-critique → /insight-assess, plus /insight-explore, plus hybrid synthesis), and hands back a decision surface — a recommendation over the items and viable hybrids, plus the insight trail that produced it. Its thesis: route → discover angles → expose connections → assess → recommend. It surfaces the decision either as an ask-gate (fired standalone) or inline (fired as a sub-step), and never auto-dives into expensive analysis without the handler's consent.

Structured execution spec: protocol.yon. Read it for the canonical rules and step sequence; this file is explanation. The two must stay in sync — if you edit one, update the other and refresh the @STAMP date.

Gate 0 — Stop-first (before any heavy processing)

A cheap pre-flight that runs before the router and before any sub-skill fires, so a 500-item set or a mis-aimed invocation never triggers the battery. It is an escalation warning, not a hard stop — warn the handler, then proceed if they override.

Warn + escalate to the handler when:

• Over-large corpus — a set beyond ~8–10 items, or a subject whose source-gathering would blow a normal read budget. Name the size; offer sampling / fan-out.
• Ill-fit — the subject isn't a decision/evaluation target. Redirect instead of grinding: factual lookup → /investigate; question-quality → /ask-gate; pure divergence with no evaluation → /insight-explore; "just surface angles/connections, no decision" → /insight-angles.
• Unframeable — no coherent subject to route.

State the reason and the suggested alternative, then let the handler decide. If pressed ("do it anyway"), proceed best-effort (with sampling/fan-out for the over-large case). The number is guidance for the warning, not a wall.

Phase 0 — Contextual router (Form × Corpus → depth)