The Explore agent is a "Fast agent" optimized for codebase exploration,
not deep reasoning. The skill-stocktake V4 design requires holistic AI
judgment (actionability, scope fit, uniqueness, currency) which needs
the full reasoning capability of the conversation's main model.
Additionally, the Agent tool has no `model` parameter — specifying
`model: opus` was silently ignored, causing the evaluation to run on
the lightweight Explore model. This resulted in all skills receiving
"Keep" verdicts without genuine critical analysis.
Changing to `general-purpose` agent ensures evaluation runs on the
conversation's main model (e.g., Opus 4.6), enabling the holistic
judgment that V4 was designed for.
Replace the 5-dimension numeric scoring rubric with a checklist + holistic
verdict system (Save / Improve then Save / Absorb into [X] / Drop).
Key improvements:
- Explicit pre-save checklist: grep skills/ for duplicates, check MEMORY.md,
consider appending to existing skills, confirm reusability
- 4-way verdict instead of binary save/don't-save: adds "Absorb into [X]"
to prevent skill file proliferation, and "Improve then Save" for iterative
refinement
- Verdict-specific confirmation flows tailored to each outcome
- Design rationale explaining why holistic judgment outperforms numeric
scoring with modern frontier models
Tatsuya ShimomotoandAffaan Mustafa