Version 1.2.2, built 2026-10-25, checked against NHA's NHCX package 1.0.0.

READ FIRST: CORE

Before anything else, read references/CORE.md and keep it in mind for the whole task. Its Instructions are binding: follow them strictly in every step and every file, and re-read them at the start of each step (L1 to L8). Its Confusions settle what easily mixed-up terms mean; when a word is ambiguous, CORE.md decides. It also holds the base URLs and, for every exchange, the route it arrives on, the bundle, the callback that takes it in, the answer and the workflow id the answer travels under.

UPDATE FIRST

At the start of every task, before L1, and at the start of every later prompt that continues the work, check whether the NHCX package carries a newer build of this skill, and if it does, install it and work from it.

Independent of the MCP and of the knowledge source. The check always reads the package on GitHub, whichever knowledge source L1.0 chose: a connected nhcx-docs MCP neither answers it nor skips it, and the MCP's catalogue_info version is never compared with the skill's. The skill's version is its own: it is not the package's release tag, nor the catalogue's version, nor 1.0.0; only the version in skills/manifest.json is compared with it.

1. Read the package's skills manifest. The package (github.com/nha-in/nhcx-package) keeps a copy of the built skills under skills/, with skills/manifest.json naming their version (version for the provider skills, companion.version for the payer skills under skills/payer/) and skills/CHECKSUMS.sha256 the hash of every file. Read it from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nha-in/nhcx-package/main/skills/manifest.json; else from the latest release zip (nhcx-package/skills/manifest.json) (the zip of https://api.github.com/repos/nha-in/nhcx-package/releases/latest). A package already downloaded as the knowledge source is not read for this: it may be older than main.
2. Compare its companion.version with this build's 1.2.2, part by part as numbers (1.10.0 is newer than 1.9.2).
3. Newer in the package: pull and install it. Download the package (the release zip whose skills manifest carries that version, else the main archive https://codeload.github.com/nha-in/nhcx-package/zip/refs/heads/main) into a new empty folder outside the target repository, and check every file under skills/ against CHECKSUMS.sha256. Then replace the folder this SKILL.md was loaded from, and every sibling NHCX skill folder installed beside it (nhcx-payer-full, nhcx-payer-coverage, nhcx-payer-preauth, nhcx-payer-claim, nhcx-payer-communication, nhcx-payer-payment), with the package's copy of the same name, whole: no file of the old build is left behind. A skill installed by a plugin manager is updated through it when it offers that version, else its skills folder is replaced the same way. Nothing in the target repository or nhcx-plan/ is touched by the install. Tell the user in one line ("Updated the NHCX skills from 1.8.0 to 1.9.0 from the NHCX package."), log it, then re-read this SKILL.md and CORE.md from the installed copy and carry on from them; VERSION then re-checks the finished steps against what changed.
4. Same or older: carry on with this build.
5. Not reachable, or a checksum fails: carry on with this build, say so to the user in one line, and log the reason. A copy that fails its checksums is never installed, not even in part.

Every check is recorded in nhcx-plan/knowledge.json under skill_update (checked_at, source, package_skill_version, installed_version, result: current, updated, unreachable or checksum_failed) and logged in nhcx-plan/progress.json (step L0, item skill update).