/auto

name: auto
license: MIT
compatibility: "Claude Code 2.1.277+."
description: "Default front door for goal-shaped requests: classifies a plain-English goal and routes it to the right skill. Use for do this, figure out, I want, help me, fix, build, improve. Not for browsing skills (use help)."
argument-hint: "[plain-english goal]"
context: inherit
user-invocable: true
allowed-tools: "AskUserQuestion Read Grep Glob Skill Agent"
model: sonnet
metadata:
  category: workflow-automation
  version: "1.0.0"
  author: "OrchestKit"
  complexity: "medium"
  tags: "router, intent, orchestration, discovery, meta, front-door"
triggers:
  keywords: [auto, "do this", "figure out", "just make", "get it to", "i want", "help me with", "not sure which", "what should i", "can you make"]
  examples:
    - "get coverage above 90%"
    - "why isn't the build green"
    - "just make the login page work"
    - "I want the API faster"
  anti-triggers: ["/ork:help", "list skills", "what skills exist"]

auto — Intent Router

The front door to OrchestKit. **You describe a goal in plain English; the router classifies it and hands off to the right specialist.** One entry point, many execution paths.

> **Why this exists:** OrchestKit has 116 skills, but usage telemetry shows users fire only the handful they can name by memory (10 distinct skills across thousands of sessions). The dominant cause of "dead" skills is **no front door** — not low quality. This router turns "you must know the exact `/ork:<name>`" into "describe what you want."

**Core principle:** routing is a *deterministic workflow*, not an autonomous agent (Anthropic, *Building Effective Agents*). Classify → confirm → hand off. The router never does the work itself — it picks who does.

When to use

**By default, for any goal-shaped request.** An unambiguous goal is a 1-step route: auto classifies, confirms in one line, and hands off — no extra hops, so there is no "too obvious for auto".

| Use `auto` for… | Skip only when… | |---|---| | Any goal description ("fix X", "get Y to Z") | Already executing inside another skill (no recursion) | | The right skill isn't obvious | Chaining a known multi-skill workflow you're mid-way through | | You think you know the skill — auto confirms & short-circuits | |

> **Design note (2026-07-12):** this table previously said "Go direct when you > already know the skill / the request maps unambiguously to one". That inverted > instruction made the front door structurally unreachable — a competent model > always believes it knows the target, so the router recorded near-zero > invocations across thousands of sessions (the exact dead-skill problem the > "Why this exists" note above describes). Routers must be framed as the > default path, not an escape hatch for confusion.

Intent categories → OrchestKit skill

| intent | signal words | routes to | |---|---|---| | **fix** | fix, debug, broken, failing, error, crash, regression | `fix-issue` | | **diagnose** | why, why isn't, why does, why can't, investigate | `fix-issue` (investigation-first) | | **optimize** | faster, reduce, latency, bundle, minimize, below N ms | a **`/goal` optimization loop** (see Gaps) | | **cover** | coverage, untested, get to N% | `cover --target N` | | **e2e** | e2e, in the browser, browser test, playwright | `expect` (run on the diff); `cover` when no e2e tests exist yet | | **design** | design, architect, how should we, explore, idea | `/ork:brainstorm` | | **build** | build, implement, create, add feature, from ticket | `implement` | | **review** | review, PR, MR, pull request, #N | `review-pr` | | **verify** | verify, check, make sure, passes, green | `verify` | | **improve-skill** | improve the skill, optimize the prompt, SKILL.md | the **holdout-promotion gate** (see Gaps) | | **setup** | set up OrchestKit, onboard this repo, which skills fit this project, rescan the stack | `/ork:setup` | | **migrate** | across all repos, every repo, org-wide, roll out to N repos, bump in each consumer | `/ork:swarm-migrate` | | **(fallback)** | no confident category | clarify with ONE question |

Full per-category parameter extraction + edge cases: `references/routing-rules.md`.

Model weight (orthogonal second dimension)

Intent picks **who** does the work. Weight picks **how expensive that worker should be**. A route is `{intent} @ {weight}`. Weight never changes the intent and never replaces it. The taxonomy above and the 7 disambiguation rules are untouched by it.

Tiers are the ones already declared in each agent's `model:` frontmatter (`haiku` 3 · `sonnet` 23 · `opus` 6 · `inherit` 4). No parallel taxonomy.

| weight | tier | the task is… | |---|---|---| | **Light** | `haiku` | mechanical or IO-bound, single file, deterministic output, trivially revertible | | **Standard** | `sonnet` | the default: bounded judgment, known pattern | | **Heavy** | `opus` | adversarial, security, safety, architecture, cross-cutting, or ambiguous |

**Resolution is asymmetric:** ANY heavy signal ⇒ Heavy; Light requires ALL light signals; everything else is Standard. Under-powering a security review yields a confident wrong answer nobody catches; over-powering a rename only wastes money.

Weight is **per leg, not per route**. A PR review can be a Heavy security leg plus a Light lint leg. Full signal table, per-intent defaults, and the honest limits of this lever: `references/routing-rules.md`.

> **This is the selector, and the only cost control.** OrchestKit ships no spawn cap: the old `team-size-gate` hook was removed in #3839. Choosing the tier here is what keeps a premium model off routine work.

The flow

  CLASSIFY  ->  CONFIRM  ->  HAND OFF
     |            |             |
  intent       show the     invoke the
  + weight     route        target skill;
  one line     + nod        follow ITS phases

1. Classify

Name the route and the one signal that decided it in a single short line. Example: *"'get latency under 200ms' names a metri