the-spiral

# The Spiral — Operational Skill ## Overview The Spiral is a game-like epistemic process. It takes a core claim and spirals outward through five rings of increasing friction, grounding, and compression. Each ring has a Socratic loop. The user controls depth. The agent manages flow. Artifacts accumulate. The spiral ends when the user has rigorous, communicable output. **This is an interactive, stateful process.** You are running a game, not generating a document. Every step involves the user. You ask, they answer, you push, they refine, you research, you crystallize, they decide what's next. --- ## Setup When the skill triggers, initialize the game: ### Step 1: Gather Context Use `askUserQuestionsTool` to establish the three inputs: **Question 1:** "What are we spiraling on? Describe the domain — a company, a book, a product, a policy, a research question." **Question 2:** "What should the spiral produce? What's the end deliverable — pitch materials, a strategy doc, a book proposal, a manifesto?" **Question 3:** "Are there specific domains you know you need to cover (e.g., business model, team, market, technical architecture)? Or should the spiral discover them as we go?" If the user provides all three in their initial message, skip to Step 2. ### Step 2: Initialize State Create `spiral_state.json` in the project root: ```json { "domain": "", "purpose": "", "addressable_space": [], "current_ring": 1, "current_loop": 1, "current_phase": "socratic", ...