Tree

tree — universal radial-tree exploration engine

What this skill is. A single engine implementing recursive radial-tree exploration (root → 12-framing expansion → per-node 12-field derivation → score → recurse on high-verdict leaves → terminate on substantive convergence). What varies between use-cases (brainstorm vs critique vs design vs code-audit) is the baseline recipe, node schema, scoring dimensions, and verdict vocabulary — all parameterized via a preset file.

What this skill is NOT. Not a one-shot LLM call that returns a bulleted list. Not a chat interface — once the §2.0 glossary grill has settled terminology and the root is written, the engine runs to convergence without further prompts (§F6). Not bundled with a model — pure prompt-engineering on top of Claude Code's existing model setting.

The full engine specification lives in docs/ENGINE.md. This SKILL.md is a 7-step navigation guide; Read docs/ENGINE.md before producing the first node (the engine spec is what defines "valid" for everything you'll write).

1. Invocation

/cc-tree:tree <root> --preset <name|path> [flags]

<root> is preset-typed:

• brainstorm preset → topic string, e.g. "ways to detect dark-matter substructure"
• attack preset → file path (.md / .tex / etc.) or quoted argument-text
• design preset → design-prompt string or .md file path
• code-audit preset → file path or directory path

--preset is required:

• Built-in: brainstorm, attack, design, code-audit (resolve to presets/<name>.md in this plugin)
• Path: ./my-custom.md (any .md file with the right frontmatter)

Common flags (apply across presets)

Presets and their command wrappers may document additional preset-specific flags (e.g. attack's --focus <section|claim|equation>); a flag documented by the active preset or its wrapper is not "unknown" (docs/ENGINE.md §1.3).

Caps default to ∞ on purpose. The intended termination is §6 substantive convergence — see docs/ENGINE.md §6. Caps are escape valves for quick exploration; when one trips, the engine still drives every in-flight node to a complete state before reporting WIDTH_CAP_REACHED / DEPTH_CAP_REACHED / ROUNDS_EXHAUSTED.

2. Execution flow

Required Reads at session start (before producing the first node):

1. The preset file (presets/<name>.md or --preset <path>) — full file.
2. docs/ENGINE.md — full file. This is the contract.
3. docs/framings.md — the 12 framings with per-preset examples.
4. If --glossary <path>: Read that glossary file in full.

Step 1 — Preset load

Open the preset file. Extract from its YAML frontmatter:

• name, description, use-when (informational)
• root_kind — topic | artifact | code | design-prompt
• subject_label — what each tree node is called (idea, critique, option, finding, …)
• verdict_enum — 4-tuple: advances / kept / pruned / blocked
• convergence_metric — which verdict role counts toward the §6.1 condition-2 ratio. It must be one of the four verdict_enum role keys verbatim (advances / kept / pruned / blocked); alias spellings like novelty_ratio are rejected by the validator. All four shipped presets use advances (docs/presets.md)
• score_dims — list of 5 scoring dimensions (key + name + desc)
• node_schema — list of 12 node-field names
• output_artifacts — file names for the per-verdict final reports

The preset body (below frontmatter) supplies:

• §2 baseline recipe (what to Read / Grep / WebFetch to build the root)
• Optional per-framing examples (§3.A–§3.L flavored for this preset)
• Optional anti-pattern list specific to this preset

Step 2 — §2 baseline

Follow the preset's baseline recipe. For all presets this includes:

• §2.0 (unless --no-grill): glossary-grill prelude. Lock root-node noun-phrases to the glossary if one was supplied; surface MISSING / AMBIGUOUS / CONFLICT one question at a time per docs/ENGINE.md §2.0.
• §2.A or §2.B (preset-determined): build the root node from real evidence (Read files, Grep symbols, WebFetch references). The root must have the 5-8 fields the preset specifies, each with file:line or URL evidence.

Save the root to <out>/tree.md + <out>/tree.json before producing any framing branches.

Step 3 — §3 framing pass (12 passes per node)

For each node (starting with root, then any high-verdict leaf in the next round):

Run §3.A through §3.L, each producing at least 1 new child branch. See docs/framings.md for the full prompt per framing, including domain-specific examples per preset.

Parallelize when fan-out ≥ 5 (always true for the root and hot leaves): dispatch the 12 framings across Agent(Explore) sub-agents per the mandatory protocol in docs/ENGINE.md §8.1. Running them sequentially at that fan-out is a defect. Deep marginal leaves (< 5 expected children) may run sequentially.

§3.X (if --no-online is off): per node, do 1 round of WebSearch + WebFetch. The query set is preset-determined (brainstorm/design → prior art + tooling; attack → critiques / errata; code-audit → CVEs / advisories) — see docs/framings.md §3.X.