Routing-Gate (Bridge Skill)

This is a Bridge Skill that provides pure work-type routing logic for cycle skill CHAIN phases. It extracts duplicated routing from implementation-cycle, investigation-cycle, and close-work-cycle into a single reusable component.

When to Use

Invoked from: Cycle skill CHAIN phases (implementation-cycle, investigation-cycle, close-work-cycle). Manual invocation: Skill(skill="routing-gate") when determining next work routing.

Design Note

Threshold checks are NOT in this skill. Per S137 anti-pattern analysis and E2-224 implementation, threshold checks (observation triage trigger) live in the OBSERVE phase of close-work-cycle. This skill does pure work-type routing only.

The Flow

code

Input (next_work_id, has_plan)
    |
    +-> Work-Type Routing
            next_work_id is None?
                ├─ YES → await_operator
                └─ NO  → starts with "INV-"?
                            ├─ YES → invoke_investigation
                            └─ NO  → has_plan?
                                        ├─ YES → invoke_implementation
                                        └─ NO  → invoke_work_creation

Cycle-Locking Check (E2-291)

Before applying the decision table, check cycle-locking:

•Determine active queue (from survey-cycle context or "default")
•Run just is-cycle-allowed [queue] [cycle]

•If BLOCKED:

•Return {action: "blocked", reason: "Queue [name] only allows [cycles]"}

•Display warning:

code

WARNING: Cycle '[cycle]' is blocked for queue '[queue]'.
Allowed cycles: [list from config]
Queue rationale: "[from work_queues.yaml]"

•If ALLOWED: continue to decision table

Routing Decision Table

Signal	Action	Skill to Invoke
Cycle blocked by queue	`blocked`	None - display warning
`next_work_id` is None	`await_operator`	None - wait for operator
ID starts with `INV-`	`invoke_investigation`	`investigation-cycle`
`has_plan` is True	`invoke_implementation`	`implementation-cycle`
Otherwise	`invoke_work_creation`	`work-creation-cycle`

Usage

From cycle skill CHAIN phase:

•Query next work: just queue [name] (or just ready for backward compat)
•Read first work file, check documents.plans field
•
Check cycle-locking: just is-cycle-allowed [queue] [cycle]
- •If BLOCKED: display warning and stop
•
Apply the decision table above:
- •next_work_id is None → await_operator
- •ID starts with INV- → invoke_investigation
- •has_plan is True → invoke_implementation
- •Otherwise → invoke_work_creation
•
Execute the corresponding skill invocation:
- •invoke_investigation → Skill(skill="investigation-cycle")
- •invoke_implementation → Skill(skill="implementation-cycle")
- •invoke_work_creation → Skill(skill="work-creation-cycle")
- •await_operator → Report "No unblocked work. Awaiting operator direction."
- •blocked → Report warning with allowed cycles and rationale

API Reference

determine_route()

python

def determine_route(
    next_work_id: Optional[str],
    has_plan: bool
) -> dict:
    """
    Determine routing action based on work-type signals.

    Args:
        next_work_id: ID of next work item (None if no work available)
        has_plan: Whether work item has documents.plans populated

    Returns:
        dict with keys:
            action: str - One of: invoke_investigation, invoke_implementation,
                          invoke_work_creation, await_operator
            reason: str - Why this action was chosen
    """

Key Design Decisions

Decision	Choice	Rationale
Pure routing only	No threshold checks	S137: Thresholds in routing cause context-switching anti-pattern
Return dict	{action, reason}	Self-documenting, extensible for future signals
Single function	determine_route()	Simple API, easy to test
Bridge skill	Not a cycle	Routing is a decision, not a workflow

•E2-224: OBSERVE Phase Threshold-Triggered Triage (where thresholds live)
•E2-222: Routing Threshold Configuration (future - makes thresholds configurable)
•E2-223: Integrate Routing-Gate into Cycle Skills (consumer integration)
•INV-048: Routing Gate Architecture (source investigation)
•implementation-cycle: Consumer of this skill
•investigation-cycle: Consumer of this skill
•close-work-cycle: Consumer of this skill