Escalate

---
name: escalate
description: 'Terminal escalation for do when unresolved blockers require outside intervention and no useful independent work remains. Reports the evidence, recovery attempts, completed work, and intervention needed.'
user-invocable: false
---

This is a terminal handoff, called only after useful independent work is exhausted.
An earlier blocker notice belongs in the executor's progress report; it does not
end the run. If useful independent work remains, return to the calling executor
to continue it before escalating.

Receive the Manifest path from `/do`, along with the affected gates and the actual evidence behind each. Relay that evidence as supplied, without inventing verification the run did not perform. Surface it with the blocker evidence: the criterion (INV-G or AC ID) that can't be met, the credible recovery paths investigated and why they failed, and the intervention needed — unavailable knowledge or access, new authority, or a change to a binding requirement. Name what independent work completed and why the remainder depends on that intervention. Recommend a resolution; report it without starting a question-and-wait loop.

Also name material autonomous decisions and their rationale, including Appetite revisions and the benefit that justified their added complexity or maintenance; any Process Guidance departed from; any deviation from the Initial Approach or the Deliverable order; findings a gate reported below its threshold and pre-existing issues left as unrelated to the change, offering `ticket-up` for any the user wants worked; and any costly-threshold concern the run recorded while continuing repairs. Include these even when the execution log already holds them.

A false binding premise outside the caller's amendment authority can arrive here
even when its gate passed. Quote the report or name what execution showed in place
of attempts a passing gate does not have. A costly bar alone is not a blocker
while repairs remain viable; it is reported as a concern, never lowered by this
skill.

A BLOCKED verifier verdict is not sufficient on its own: the executor first
investigates what it can recover and completes useful independent work. Quote the
remaining BLOCKED note and name the required outside action. A pure external wait
reports as pending under a no-wait policy; otherwise the executor waits and
re-verifies. A stalled wait with no viable recovery path names the intervention
needed here. Pure user questions about the manifest or process are answered inline
by the executor.

**If the user later supplies a scope or requirement change**, invoke `define`
with the Manifest path, then resume the executor. If they clear the blocker
or supply the missing context, resume it directly. Their response is steering;
resumed execution remains unattended.