carto-composite-scoring

Use this skill whenever the user wants to create a composite score, index, or multi-variable ranking in a CARTO Workflow.

Prerequisites: Load carto-create-workflow for the development process.

Instructions

Step 1: Determine the scoring approach

Ask the user the following decision tree:

1. "Do you have a target/outcome variable?" (e.g. revenue, sales, crime rate)
   • Yes → Supervised method using native.spatialcompositesupervised
2. "No target, but do you have expert knowledge of variable importance?" (i.e. custom weights)
   • 2a. Transparency matters more than node count → native.normalize per variable + native.selectexpression with the weighted-sum literally in SQL (a_norm * 0.5 + b_norm * 0.2 + c_norm * 0.3). Inputs and weights are inspectable inline in Workflows; each normalized column is materialized; no Analytics Toolbox dependency. Use when stakeholders need to see/audit the formula, or when you're not running on AT.
   • 2b. Want the AT pipeline (scaling, aggregation, bucketing) handled for you → native.spatialcompositeunsupervised with scoring_method: CUSTOM_WEIGHTS. One node, but the formula is hidden inside the component.
3. "No target, no weights?"
   • → Unsupervised method with ENTROPY or FIRST_PC using native.spatialcompositeunsupervised

Success: You have identified which component and scoring method to use before designing the pipeline.