Show me your work

For work a human reviews after the fact, a decision trail reconstructs what was decided, why, and on what evidence.

Authorized Scope

Apply this engine only within the user's requested task and existing explicit authorization. Loading or delegating to it grants no additional authority. Preserve report-only restrictions and the caller's target, host, provider, and cost limits. Existing approval satisfies a gate only for the same actions and scope; obtain approval before expanding them. Forward these limits to delegates.

Contract

Inputs:

A long, autonomous, or multi-phase run that needs an audit trail

Outputs:

One canonical TSV log, plus an Attention section from a different-tier review of the trail

Creates/Modifies:

decisions.tsv in the work dir, or .tmp/audit/<task-slug>.tsv when several efforts run at once
Commit the log only when a reviewer needs it

External Side Effects:

None unless the caller commits the trail

Confirmation Required:

Before committing the log to the repo

Delegates To:

None. Other skills route their trail here.

Format

Copy references/decision-log-template.tsv to start. Columns: ts, phase, decision, why, evidence, result. Cells stay single-line. Evidence is a pointer, not prose.

Use scripts/log.sh <logfile> <phase> <decision> <why> <evidence> <result> so rows stay well-formed.

Log decision points and checkpoints, not every action. Append-only. A wrong call gets a new row.

Write each entry the way you'd tell a teammate. Apply references/prose-slop.md from the selected deslop skill directory to log text.

Audit the log

Before handing back, walk the log against what actually happened in this run's transcript (the path the harness names). Cut invented rows. Add missing forks. Drop padding.

Cross-tier review

Spawn a subagent on a different capability tier or family from the one that did the work. It reads the trail and the transcript, then flags weak evidence, skipped verification, and risky choices.

Every reply for a run that produced a trail ends with an Attention section. Lead with the reviewer's capability tier, then list flags. "No flags" is valid. Never name a concrete model.

Show Me Your Work procedure

Read show-me-your-work procedure when running this workflow. Apply the authorized scope and mode of this entry point to every step. Resolve other skills through this distribution’s active catalog; resolve resources relative to the installed skill directory.