Target Selection Skill

Process steps in order. Do not skip ahead. This skill has one human-in-the-loop pause at Step 3 — that is the spec's only manual step in the pipeline. Every other step continues immediately.

Step 1 — Locate and Load the Discovery File

Input is one of:

• An explicit path to a discovery.json, or
• A company slug (e.g., spotify) — find the most-recent runs/<UTC-timestamp>/<slug>/discovery.json by lex-sort descending of the timestamp directory name. Tie-breaking is filesystem-time descending.

Validate the file exists and parses as JSON. Branch on verdict:

• BUILD → proceed to Step 2.
• SKIP → output verdict: SKIP, the skip_reason and search_attempted, then finish here (no selection to make).
• AMBIGUOUS → output the sub_brands_detected[] list and the guidance field, then finish here with the message: re-invoke the discovery skill with parent/sub-brand.

Proceed immediately to Step 2 only if verdict is BUILD.

Step 2 — Sort Candidates

Take skill_targets[] from the discovery JSON. Sort descending by:

• Consume-mode (schema_version: 2, or schema_version: 3 with mode: "consume"): booth-aha score = confidence × iu_weight × pop_weight × ts_weight, with weights from the contract (iu: confirmed=1.0, inferred=0.7, weak=0.3, none=0.1; pop: majority=1.0, minority=0.6, small_team=0.4, external=0.2; ts: USE=1.0, AUTHOR=0.5, INTEGRATE=0.3).
• Produce-mode (schema_version: 3 with mode: "produce"): by raw confidence only — produce-mode targets do not carry the v2 consume-side fields, so the booth-aha multipliers are not defined.
• v1: by raw confidence only (v1 outputs lack the consume-side fields needed for booth-aha computation).

Drop candidates with raw confidence < 0.5 from presentation. The BUILD verdict already requires at least one target ≥0.5; lower-confidence candidates exist as discovery hints but are not human-gate-ready.

If the filtered list is empty, surface that to the user and finish — discovery passed BUILD but no candidate is mature enough for human selection.

Proceed immediately to Step 3.

Step 3 — Present and Accept Selection (human-in-the-loop)

This is the spec's only manual step. Present the candidates in a Markdown table or a numbered list with these fields per row. The exact column set depends on mode:

Common columns (all modes):

• Rank (1, 2, 3...) ordered by score
• Target ID
• Title
• Kind
• Confidence (raw)
• Rationale (1–2 sentences)
• Differentiation hypothesis (1–2 sentences)
• Existing competition (one clause)

Consume-mode additions (v2 / v3+consume):

• Task_shape and size_class
• Booth-aha score (computed)
• Internal-usage anchor (surface name + level)

Produce-mode (v3+produce): omit the consume-mode columns above. The booth-aha score column shows "—" and the audience is implicitly "external developers consuming the public API."

v1: omit consume-mode columns; show "—" for booth-aha score (same effective layout as produce-mode).

Then explicitly ask the human to pick exactly one of:

• A target ID (e.g., tgt_01) — selects that target.
• skip — the human is rejecting all candidates; ask for a one-line reason and require a non-empty answer.
• defer — postpone the decision; no selection.json is written.

Wait for the human reply. Do not auto-pick.

This step legitimately ends with output and a question — the agent's job is to surface options and ask. The human's reply is the input to Step 4. Do not generate a synthetic pick on the human's behalf.

Proceed to Step 4 only after the human has responded.

Step 4 — Validate Selection

Branch on the human's reply:

• Target ID — verify it appears as an id in the discovery's skill_targets[]. If not (typo, wrong format, out-of-range), surface the error and re-prompt — return to Step 3.
• skip — record the supplied reason; require non-empty.
• defer — finish here without writing a selection.json.

Proceed immediately to Step 5 unless defer was chosen.

Step 5 — Persist Selection

Write selection.json to the same directory as the input discovery.json with this shape:

{
  "schema_version": 1,
  "discovery_path": "<absolute path to the discovery.json>",
  "selected_target_id": "tgt_01",
  "selection_status": "selected | skipped",
  "selection_rationale": "<human-supplied note; required for skipped, optional for selected>",
  "selected_at": "ISO-8601 UTC"
}

For selection_status: skipped, selected_target_id is null and selection_rationale is required (captures why none of the candidates were chosen — feedback for future discovery iterations).

Run skills/select-target/scripts/validate-selection.py <selection-path> to confirm the file validates. The validator cross-references the linked discovery.json to ensure the selected target_id (when present) is real.

Output the absolute path of the persisted selection. Finish here.