⛔ This skill MUST be read in full — not skimmed. Formal review gates depend on its workflow.
Skipping steps silently bypasses quality checks. Missing gates = undetected breakages.

Verifier gate: dispatches AI reviewers. Pipeline auto-advances when clean.

Friction Triage

Gate between friction detection and action. Prevents the agent from jumping from "I see a friction event" to "here's my fix" without understanding what actually broke.

The Problem

Broken:  Reflect → Agent sees friction → Agent: "Fix it by doing X!"
Fixed:   Reflect → Agent invokes friction-triage → Triage → Root cause → Research → Scoped issues

The broken pipeline produces issues that prescribe solutions before understanding the problem. The fixed pipeline produces issues that mandate research.

Step 1 — Gather

Read friction data. The current writer is extensions/reflect-hook.ts — session data lands in ~/.tortoise/session-events/<date>.jsonl (and hosted tortoise /v1/sessions once hosted capture is explicitly opted in via "cloud": true plus a key — #803; a key alone never enables egress). Legacy eldato checkouts also write under docs/teams/<team>/operations/:

# Current source (reflect-hook):
ls -t ~/.tortoise/session-events/*.jsonl 2>/dev/null | head -1
cat "$(ls -t ~/.tortoise/session-events/*.jsonl 2>/dev/null | head -1)" 2>/dev/null

# Legacy eldato source (if a checkout exists):
ls -t docs/teams/*/operations/*postmortem* 2>/dev/null | head -1
cat docs/teams/organisation-design-team/operations/friction_events.jsonl 2>/dev/null

Extract: friction types, frequencies, timestamps, double-loop flags.

Step 2 — Triage

Classify EVERY friction event into exactly one category:

Category	Definition	Example	Action
agent-error	Agent should have known better	Skipping skill read, hitting enforcer repeatedly	Fix agent behavior
gate-bug	Gate has a real bug	VGATE rejects valid JSON, enforcer deadlocks	Fix the gate
design-gap	Gate correct but workflow creates unavoidable friction	Enforcer re-blocks after every reload	Refine gate/workflow
workaround-signal	Agent reaches for bypass instead of fixing root cause	--no-verify push because VGATE is hard to satisfy	Fix gate driving workarounds

Rule: When unsure, default to design-gap — requires research before action.

Step 3 — Cluster

Group related events by root cause, not by friction type. Same root cause produces different friction types:

Root: VGATE schema mismatch
  → verification-gate (P1) × 40: schema-invalid JSON rejected
  → gate-blocked (P0) × 22: agent retries commit after block
  → counterproductive-harness (P2) × 16: agent resorts to --no-verify

Step 4 — Root Cause

Trace each cluster's causal chain 3 levels:

Level 1 (symptom): Agent uses --no-verify push
Level 2 (mechanism): VGATE blocks commit, verifier returns wrong format
Level 3 (root): VGATE prompt format undocumented, verifiers don't know required JSON

Stop when you reach a cause that, if fixed, would prevent the entire chain.

Step 5 — Research

For each root cause, research alternatives:

• Internal: check issues, AGENTS.md, MEMORY.md for prior discussion
• External: how do other agent systems handle gate friction?
• Adversarial: what if we removed this gate entirely?

Output: 2-3 alternative approaches per cluster with trade-offs.

Step 6 — File Issues

For each cluster with confirmed root cause and researched alternatives, file ONE issue that:

1. Describes the root cause (not the symptom)
2. References friction events
3. Mandates research before implementation
4. Does NOT prescribe a solution

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Continue following the workflow as mandated by this skill. Do not skip steps. Do not propose solutions before completing triage and research.