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Add a new skill kind, 'entry-point', and its sole instance at skills/entry.md. When an orchestrator points an agent at BCQuality, the agent's first call is Entry: it receives a task context and returns a dispatch record naming the action skill(s) to invoke. Routing logic lives in Entry, not in the orchestrator. Entry structurally follows DO's Source -> Relevance -> Worklist -> Action pattern but the units it selects are action skills (not knowledge files) and its output is a dispatch record (not a findings-report). Contract highlights: - Inputs semantics in DO clarified as any-of: orchestrator supplies whichever listed input types it has; skill must return 'not-applicable' if the subset is insufficient. This matches the existing al-* canonical skills which declare [pr-diff, file-path] as alternatives. - Relevance admits candidates whose inputs intersect inputs-available, not whose inputs are a subset. - Dispatched inputs are the intersection, not the full inputs-available set, to avoid leakage between skills. - Super-skill precedence in Worklist supersedes a sub-skill only when the goal is a broader match for the super than the sub. When the goal specifically names a concern the sub handles (e.g., 'performance review'), the sub wins and the super is dropped with reason 'narrower-sub-skill-selected'. - Skill layer precedence is defined here as custom > community > microsoft, matching READ's rule for knowledge files. - skipped[] carries 'superseded-by' for layer-precedence, sub-skill, and super-skill drops, for traceability. Propagate the concept through: - skills/README.md: distinguish the runtime entry-point skill from the three meta-skill contracts. - skills/do.md: acknowledge entry-point alongside meta-skills as the only kinds that live outside a layer. - README.md: rewrite the Skills and Agent bootstrapping sections so the bootstrap instruction is 'invoke /skills/entry.md first'. - agent-consumption.md: update the Mermaid flow and step narrative to show Entry dispatch, with READ and DO read on demand. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
77 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
77 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown
# How agents consume BCQuality
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BCQuality is content — knowledge files and skills. It is consumed by agents that live elsewhere (AL-Go, a VS Code extension, a GitHub Agent invocation, etc.). This document explains the end-to-end flow, so that skill authors, orchestrator maintainers, and contributors share one mental model.
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For the high-level framing and repo structure, start with the [README](README.md). This document is the operational view.
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## The actors
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- **Orchestrator** — the tool that triggers work (e.g. AL-Go on a pull request, or a VS Code extension on save). Lives *outside* BCQuality. Knows *when* to run something, not *what* to run.
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- **Agent** — an LLM-driven process spawned by the orchestrator. The agent has no built-in knowledge of BC or of BCQuality's conventions. It knows how to read instructions and call tools.
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- **BCQuality repo** — two kinds of content:
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- **Global skills** in `/skills/` — the `entry.md` entry-point skill plus the READ · DO · WRITE contracts that govern the rest of the repo.
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- **Layer content** in `/microsoft/`, `/community/`, and `/custom/` — knowledge files and action skills grouped by authority.
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## The flow
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```mermaid
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flowchart LR
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O[Orchestrator<br/>AL-Go] -->|1 trigger + task context| A[Agent]
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A -->|2 invoke entry.md| E[Entry<br/>routing skill]
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E -->|3 dispatch record| A
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A -->|4 invoke dispatched skill| S[Action skill<br/>e.g. al-code-review]
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S -->|5 execute| P[Source → Relevance<br/>→ Worklist → Action<br/>reading READ · DO on demand]
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P -->|6 emit| R[Findings · References<br/>· Confidence]
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R -->|7 integrate| O
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```
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### 1. Orchestrator triggers
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The orchestrator has a URL setting that points at BCQuality (default: `github.com/microsoft/BCQuality`) and a task to perform. It hands the agent a **task context** — goal, inputs available (`pr-diff`, `file-path`, …), technologies, BC version, enabled layers — and says: *your source of truth lives at that URL; start by invoking `/skills/entry.md`*.
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### 2. Agent invokes Entry
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The agent reads `/skills/entry.md` and runs it against the task context. Entry applies its Source → Relevance → Worklist → Action steps over the action skills under `*/skills/**/*.md` and returns a **dispatch record**: the set of action skills to invoke, plus a list of candidates it skipped (with reasons). Routing is a skill, not orchestrator logic.
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### 3. Agent consumes the dispatch record
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The dispatch record names one or more action skills and the subset of inputs each should receive. If the outcome is `no-match` or `failed`, the agent returns the record to the orchestrator unchanged.
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### 4. Agent invokes each dispatched action skill
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Action skills live inside the layers — `/microsoft/skills/`, `/community/skills/`, `/custom/skills/` — so their authority is carried by their location. For a PR review, Entry typically dispatches `microsoft/skills/al-code-review.md`. The agent reads the file and executes it.
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### 5. Action skill executes the four-step pattern
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Each action skill is a markdown file that specifies what to do at each step. The template is always the same:
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| Step | What happens |
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| --- | --- |
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| **Source** | Declare which knowledge folders and tags to search. |
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| **Relevance** | Filter by frontmatter — `bc-version`, `technologies`, `countries`, `application-area`. |
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| **Worklist** | Narrow from N candidates to the M that apply to this specific task. |
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| **Action** | Apply the relevant knowledge and produce structured output. |
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Example: a performance review skill sources from `/microsoft/knowledge/performance/` and `/community/knowledge/performance/`, filters to `bc-version: 26` and `technologies: [al]`, narrows the 25 candidate files to the 8 that apply to the 15 objects changed in the PR, and then evaluates each file against the diff.
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At this point the agent reads READ and DO on demand — it needs READ to interpret each knowledge file's frontmatter and sections, and DO to shape its output. Those contracts are fetched when first needed, not as part of bootstrap.
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### 6. Agent emits structured output
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The output contract is defined in the DO meta-skill so that every action skill — today's and next year's — produces the same shape:
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- **Outcome** — `completed`, `not-applicable`, `no-knowledge`, `partial`, or `failed`. An orchestrator can distinguish a clean run from a no-op from a failure without guessing.
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- **Findings** — what the skill observed (severity, message, optional location).
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- **References** — structured objects (`path` plus optional commit `sha`) pointing to the knowledge files that informed each finding.
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- **Confidence** — per-finding evidence strength.
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- **Suppressed** — knowledge files that were discarded by layer precedence or configuration, so reviewers can see what was overridden.
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The orchestrator parses this **without skill-specific logic**. This is the point of the contract: orchestrators and action skills evolve independently.
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### 7. Orchestrator integrates
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The orchestrator turns findings into PR comments, build gates, or IDE diagnostics, and links the references back to the knowledge files so the PR author — human or agent — can read the guidance.
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## Why this architecture
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- **Entry is the only hardcoded thing.** Orchestrators ship with one convention — *"invoke `/skills/entry.md` first"* — and nothing else. New action skills and new knowledge files are picked up automatically because Entry discovers them at dispatch time.
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- **Layers decide authority, not code.** The agent sees `/microsoft/` and `/community/` together; if two files conflict, the precedence rule defined in READ resolves it. A partner fork can disable `/community/` — that's a config choice, not a code change.
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- **Knowledge and skills evolve independently.** A new knowledge file requires no skill changes — existing skills pick it up via frontmatter filters. A new skill requires no knowledge changes — it sources from what's already there.
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## The mental model, in one sentence
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The orchestrator knows **when** to run; Entry decides **which skill** to run; the action skills define **what** to do; the meta-skills teach the agent **how** to behave; the knowledge files are **what** the agent knows.
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