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digest

A standard skill carried by every agent on every team. Agents write their findings to a shared scratch hierarchy as they work; the team lead reads from it at consolidation time. No agent passes large outputs as context to another — the scratch is the handoff medium.

File structure

The scratch is a directory of files, not a single document. Files are organized broad-to-specific:

  • index.md — top-level summary and pointers to subtopic files; the first file any reader opens
  • <subtopic>.md — one level deeper; linked from the index
  • Further nesting only if a subtopic would otherwise exceed the line limit

Hard limit: no file exceeds 200 lines. If a write would push a file past 200 lines, split it: move the detail into a subtopic file and replace it with a one-line pointer in the parent.

Within each file, structure findings broad-to-specific: lead with the conclusion or summary, follow with supporting detail. A reader should be able to stop as soon as they have what they need.

How agents use it

When an agent completes a subtask, it writes its findings to the appropriate file in the scratch hierarchy before signaling completion to the lead. The agent:

  1. Reads the index to find the right section or confirm none exists yet
  2. Writes findings under a clearly labeled heading (role or subtask name, with a done marker)
  3. Creates a subtopic file and links it from the index if detail would push the target file over 200 lines

In-progress work may be marked in-progress; completed sections are marked done. Agents do not modify sections owned by other agents.

How the lead uses it

At consolidation, the lead reads the index first, drills into subtopic files only as needed, and resolves any conflicts — overlapping findings, contradictions, or structural collisions — before producing the final deliverable. Conflict resolution is a judgment call, not a mechanical merge: the lead decides which finding is correct or how to reconcile them.

The lead also maintains the index: adding pointers when subagents create new files, removing stale entries, and keeping the index under 200 lines.

Scratch location

The scratch directory lives in the job worktree at scratch/. Agents reference it by relative path. The directory is created on first write if it does not exist.