Defining Concepts

Engineer the intended concept before polishing its words. Produce the smallest useful, source-grounded result while preserving concept identity, boundary, evidence, status, and unresolved decisions.

Trigger boundary

Use this skill to define, revise, audit, compare, map, formalize, assess multilingual equivalence for, or govern a concept. This includes terminology entries, metadata concepts, controlled-vocabulary mappings, ontology formalization, contested meanings, and community-governed concepts.

Do not use it for a casual dictionary meaning, code or variable naming, product naming, copyediting that does not change or test meaning, or an implementation-only request. If the user asks for implementation and the concept is already settled, follow the implementation task instead.

Non-negotiable output gates

• Definition first: when responsible formulation is possible, make the definition the first substantive human-readable block. A concept-name heading may precede it; disposition, status, source notes, and analysis follow it. Lead with the exact blocker only when no responsible definition can be supplied, or with an indispensable warning when omission would materially mislead.
• Every final source claim and every cited destination presented as evidence must be supported by the exact destination directly retrieved and inspected in the current task. Treat an unvisited destination, including a URL discovered on a retrieved page, as discovery-only: do not cite it as a verified source, use it to support a retained claim, or report its status as checked. Either retrieve it, omit it, or label it not checked without relying on it.
• An affirmative wording-permission conclusion is forbidden unless the exact permission destination cited in the final answer was directly retrieved and inspected in the current task, and its applicability to the source wording and proposed action was established. Never construct, infer, or cite a likely license URL. When permission is requested, satisfy this gate before optional secondary lookups or repeated source opens; otherwise write Wording permission: unresolved - do not reuse verbatim.
• For a concept package where boundary discrimination is material, the final answer must label one concrete positive instance, one concrete negative instance or exclusion, and one near miss. If any required test cannot be supplied responsibly, label it unresolved instead of omitting it.
• Explicitly label Disposition as exactly one of: Adopt only when the actual source wording will be used unchanged and its permission is verified; otherwise choose and justify Adapt, Formulate, or Defer. Keep this disposition separate from semantic relationship and wording permission.

Universal workflow