Synthesis Anti-Shortcuts

Catches the draft that looks like good engineering but quietly substitutes a lower-effort path after the user asked for the best solution, hidden under reasonable-sounding vocabulary ("for now," "minimal diff," "backward compatible," "out of scope"). This skill names those costumes and gives the protocol to strip them out.

Binding rules

Rules 1 to 8 carry the methodology section numbers other documents cite (for example "§4–5"). New rules are appended.

1. Constraint-first. Write the user's goals and non-goals (conversation, project context, workspace and global instructions) before generating approaches; a pro that violates one cannot appear.
2. Decide what constraints decide. Ask only when an unresolved choice belongs to the user. "Recommendation: X. Your call?" on a determined or delegated choice is the costume; execute and report.
3. Scan for costume vocabulary in drafts and sub-agent reports. A phrase is legitimate only when the user asked to optimize for what it implies.
4. Dispatch briefs name the job at full size (no "keep changes minimal," "light touch," "surgical change") and carry at most five deliverables. Scan every field the sub-agent reads before dispatch; on a hit, rewrite to the completeness required.
5. Audit every sub-agent return for the same costumes. If work was left undone, redirect the sub-agent or finish it; never propagate the deferral.
6. Run the pre-response self-check (below) before any analysis, recommendation or plan ships.
7. A capability gap is not a guardrail. Never route around a guardrail; on a gap, name the failed mechanism, list alternatives and choose an authorized remedy before reporting.
8. Grow the catalog. A new costume in production output becomes a case study, a catalog entry and, where useful, a scanner pattern.
9. Delivery is part of completeness. Finish the finite assignment, including authorized shipping; more audits or frameworks do not substitute for deliverables.

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