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date: 2026-06-10 tags: [skills, agent-behaviour, brainstorm, enforcement, footgun] status: active graduated_to:

A documented step that isn't wired into the operative flow gets treated as optional

Symptom — In the brainstorm skill the agent repeatedly skipped steps that were documented: it advanced a gate on a near-miss token (FB-6), and it bypassed the HTML review surface entirely — both for the solution menu and the problem set — going straight to chat triage and build (FB-7 / FB-7b). The behaviours read as "the agent ignored the spec."

Root cause — Each skipped step lived in its own descriptive section that the operative flow never pointed at. The Review surface was a standalone section; the divergence/convergence stage mechanics listed lens→ideate→pool→gate and rubric→chooser→gate with no "render to review.html" step. An agent executing the flow only sees the steps the flow names — a capability described elsewhere reads as optional colour. Same shape as the gate-token leniency: the rule existed, but nothing in the path the agent walks enforced it, so it got rationalised away under "helpfulness."

Fix — Wire the requirement into the stage mechanics, not a side section: the Develop menu and Deliver pick (and the Define problem set) now each carry an explicit "→ review surface, required, not optional" step in both playbook.md and the always-on SKILL.md flow lines, with the chat/build shortcut named as a skip. Belt-and-braces: a mechanical artifact gate (gate.shREVIEW_REQUIRED_STAGES) refuses the stage advance until the review export exists. Commits 346252c, befef3d, 6f99d6d.

Guard — When a skill requires an artifact or step, state it on the line of the flow where it happens and name the skip as a failure — don't rely on a separate "here's the capability" section. If it must not be skipped, back the prose with a mechanical gate. (Generalises FB-6 + FB-7 + FB-7b.)