Extract Artifact Candidates

extract-artifact-candidates

Manual salvage pass.

Not a workflow gate. Not a replacement for distill-knowledge.

Run this at any point when the conversation may contain non-obvious rationale, hidden constraints, owner-boundary notes, rejected paths, revisit triggers, or start-here breadcrumbs that should be preserved as task-local candidates before they fade.

Read first

• ../references/task-packet-contract.md
• ../references/persistent-artifacts-contract.md
• ../references/initiative-workflow-contract.md when harvesting from an initiative child packet
• ../../references/communication-mode.md
• relevant tracked AGENTS.md chain
• applicable AGENTS.override.md only if local execution constraints matter
• current task packet if one exists: INDEX.md, PLAN.md, AMENDMENTS.md, ARTIFACT_CANDIDATES.md

Scope

This skill owns:

• manual history mining into ARTIFACT_CANDIDATES.md
• backfilling candidates earlier phases forgot to record
• compact INDEX.md note that a harvest occurred

It does not own:

• writing tracked AGENTS.md
• writing AGENTS.override.md
• replacing distill-knowledge
• changing PLAN.md, AMENDMENTS.md, or review verdicts
• bootstrapping a brand-new task packet from scratch

Workflow

1. Establish the target packet.

• If one current .plans// packet is already in play, use it.
• If multiple plausible packets exist, stop and ask the human which packet to backfill.
• If no packet exists, do not invent one silently. Report candidates in chat and recommend packet bootstrap via plan-task.

1. Repair candidate-file drift only if a packet exists.

• If ARTIFACT_CANDIDATES.md is missing, create the empty placeholder and note the repair in INDEX.md.

1. Read current packet state before mining.

• Avoid duplicating existing candidates.
• Use PLAN.md and AMENDMENTS.md to align terminology, owner boundaries, and already-explicit decisions.

1. Mine current history deliberately.

• Start with the current visible conversation.
• Use available history/context-log evidence to surface earlier user decisions, rejected approaches, hidden constraints, review dispositions, and carryover summaries.
• Ignore tool spam, raw logs, and dead-end debugging unless they reveal a durable trap, a tempting rejected path, or a non-obvious constraint worth preserving.

1. Triage with the candidate bar.

• Keep only task-local residue that may matter later and is not already obvious from code/tests.
• Prefer exact facts over softened paraphrase.
• Good candidate classes:
• non-obvious rationale
• hidden constraints
• owner-boundary clarifications
• rejected tempting approaches / do not casually resurrect
• revisit triggers
• start-here navigation / first validation commands
• repeated slop traps exposed by the chat
• Reject:
• implementation summaries
• transient debugging noise
• todo/checklist residue
• behavior prose already obvious from code/tests

1. Write compact candidates.

• Append or merge into ARTIFACT_CANDIDATES.md.
• Keep each candidate short, concrete, and attributable.
• Include:
• Type:
• Why keep:
• Candidate:
• Source:
• optional Related code: / Related packet refs:
• If a prior candidate is duplicated or superseded, merge instead of stacking near-identical entries.

1. Note the harvest in INDEX.md.

• Add a short note with what was harvested or no_new_candidates.

1. Hand off clearly.

• Report what was added, what was intentionally skipped, and whether distill-knowledge should later revisit any item.

Candidate bar

Only record a candidate when all are true:

1. not recoverable reliably from code/tests alone
2. durable enough to matter beyond the current moment
3. costly to forget
4. not strong enough yet to become tracked AGENTS.md directly

Edge cases

• If the current packet status is already done, prefer a light harvest only when the candidate inbox is clearly incomplete; do not reopen finished implementation work just because the chat was interesting.
• If the chat contradicts code/tests or explicit human decisions in AMENDMENTS.md, trust code/tests and amendments; record at most a mismatch note in task artifacts.

Output shape

Default outcome should say one of:

• no_new_candidates
• backfilled_candidates
• packet_missing_candidates_reported_in_chat
• packet_repaired_and_candidates_backfilled

Do not

• write tracked AGENTS.md
• write AGENTS.override.md
• summarize the whole implementation
• treat every chat decision as durable
• mine history so aggressively that ARTIFACT_CANDIDATES.md becomes a worklog
• use raw chat archaeology to override code/tests or explicit human decisions in AMENDMENTS.md

Initiative mode

When harvesting from an initiative child packet:

• keep the candidate capture child-local first
• make it easy for sync-initiative to fold stable working-memory facts into the parent initiative
• make it easy for distill-knowledge to decide later whether any candidate is durable enough for tracked memory

Communication

Honor active caveman mode for user-facing replies per ../../references/communication-mode.md. Keep durable artifacts normal unless the human asks otherwise. Drop caveman for safety/clarity when needed, then resume.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: siarhei-belavus
• Source: siarhei-belavus/agent-public
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.