Escalate

Single-purpose gate that decides whether the current decision is gated by current external reality (markets, competitive structure, regulation, live product behavior, public discourse) versus internal corpus (code, wiki, prior duels, repo history). When external reality dominates, route the question to the right research workflow. When it does not, return skip so the caller proceeds without burning a Pro run.

This skill exists because the same gate logic was duplicated nearly verbatim across at least six skills. They each said "if the answer depends on live external facts, escalate to GPT-5 Pro / Deep Research." That gate now lives here.

First Progress Marker (Required)

Start the first progress update with the exact prefix Using escalate.

Preferred format: Using escalate to <goal>. First I will <next concrete step>.

Do not change or omit that prefix.

When to Use

• Another skill is about to commit to a strategic recommendation (positioning, GTM call, build-vs-buy, plan acceptance, concept synthesis) and the recommendation rests on facts outside the repo
• The user explicitly asks "should we Oracle this", "do we need a Pro pass", or "/escalate"
• A wiki concept's claims about markets or competition haven't been validated against current external reality and the next step would lock them in