Diagnose

---
description: "Review, audit, and rewrite a lyric with Pat Pattison's methods. Demo review at any completion stage, full-draft diagnosis against the five compositional elements and stable/unstable analysis, the pre-lock line/section audit checklist (tools, not gates), labeled variations across six axes, and critique-driven rewrite. Use when: 'what's wrong with my song', 'review my draft', 'is this any good', 'review this demo', 'audit this line before I lock it', 'give me 5 versions of line 3', 'rewrite this using Pat's checklist'. For blank-page starts use /songwriting:workflow."
argument-hint: "[action] [args] (e.g., /songwriting:diagnose, /songwriting:diagnose audit \"...\", /songwriting:diagnose variations \"...\"). Full actions in body"
user-invocable: true
disable-model-invocation: false
---

## Mandatory pre-flight. Response Filter

Before emitting a critique, diagnosis, audit verdict, variation set, or rewrite, run **§3 Critique
filter** and **§8 Pre-lock filter** of
[response-filter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/response-filter.md) (add **§2 Line-writing**
when producing rewritten lines). NAME each box's pass / fail / skip-with-reason (aloud or in
reasoning); correct before emission. Skips are valid; silent skips are not. List-and-leave
critique is the default this filter catches.

`variations` and `rewrite` EMIT lines. §2's **Reference:** line is a load list, not a bibliography:
§2 has not been run until the files it names have been read this session, at minimum
[meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md) and
[phrasing](../../context/pat-pattison/research/phrasing.md) before the first candidate,
plus [metaphor](../../context/pat-pattison/research/metaphor.md) when the fix calls for an image or
a figure. Naming the §2 boxes while those files were never opened attests to the filter instead of
applying it, per
[response-filter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/response-filter.md) "§2 Line-writing filter".
The Action Router's `Load` column below is a routing hint; this is a precondition of
emission, a candidate table written before those files were opened has run on model priors, which
is the failure §2 exists to catch, and naming the §2 boxes does not undo it. On top of that, §2's
boxes are cycled inside
[line-edit-rubric](../../context/pat-pattison/research/line-edit-rubric.md): run the full cycle per
candidate before it is shown. Auditing a line the writer already HAS is the other direction. That
stays [audit-checklist](../../context/pat-pattison/research/audit-checklist.md) (pre-lock). Line
emission is `/songwriting:co-write`'s, and its input gate travels with the lines: same gate,
checked here. *(Plugin-authored, writer-derived from the Sofía sessions, 2026-08-12.)*

## Purpose

The review-and-revise layer: name the dominant problem, offer one focused revision, run the pre-lock
checklist as deliberate choice points, and generate labeled alternates. Diagnosis names problems;
it does not silently rewrite the whole song.

Method content is Pat Pattison's, under the plugin-root `../../context/pat-pattison/`; a future
author's method plugs in at `context/<author>/` without changing this skill, the author seam per
the plugin-root `../../README.md` "Method content and the author seam".

## Action Router

`/songwriting:diagnose <action> [args]`. Parse `$ARGUMENTS`: first token = action when it matches a listed action, remainder = args; otherwise treat all of `$ARGUMENTS` as payload for the default.
No action → route on completion stage (partway draft → `demo`; near-complete → `diagnose`).

| Action | Use when the user asks for | Load |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `diagnose` (default) | "what's wrong with my song", "review my draft" (near-complete) | [five-compositional-elements](../../context/pat-pattison/research/five-compositional-elements.md), [stable-unstable-meta](../../context/pat-pattison/research/stable-unstable-meta.md), [prosody](../../context/pat-pattison/research/prosody.md) |
| `demo` | "review this demo", "where do I take this", "lyric is partway done" | [demo-review](../../context/pat-pattison/research/demo-review.md), [templates/demo-review-prompt](../../context/pat-pattison/templates/demo-review-prompt.md) |
| `audit` | "line-by-line review", "pre-lock checklist", "should this lock" | [audit-checklist](../../context/pat-pattison/research/audit-checklist.md), [templates/audit-checklist-prompt](../../context/pat-pattison/templates/audit-checklist-prompt.md), [templates/diagnose-section-prompt](../../context/pat-pattison/templates/diagnose-section-prompt.md) |
| `variations` | "give me 5 versions of this line", "different POV / image / vowel", "alternate this" | [variations](../../context/pat-pattison/research/variations.md), [templates/variations-prompt](../../context/pat-pattison/templates/variations-prompt.md), [line-edit-rubric](../../context/pat-pattison/research/line-edit-rubric.md), [meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md), [phrasing](../../context/pat-pattison/research/phrasing.md) |
| `rewrite` | a lyric critique or rewrite using Pat's checklist | [stable-unstable-meta](../../context/pat-pattison/research/stable-unstable-meta.md), [five-compositional-elements](../../context/pat-pattison/research/five-compositional-elements.md), [prosody](../../context/pat-pattison/research/prosody.md), [meter](../../context/pat-pattison/research/meter.md), [phrasing](../../context/pat-pattison/research/phrasing.md), [line-edit-rubric](../../context/pat-pattison/research/line-edit-rubric.md), [object-writing](../../context/pat-pattison/research/object-writing.md), [rhyme-strategy](../../context/pat-pattison/research/rhyme-strategy.md), [cliche](../../context/pat-pattison/research/cliche.md) |

## Handlers

- **Pre-flight ALWAYS:** run response-filter §3 + §8 (+ §2 when rewriting) before output.
- Name the dominant problem; offer one focused revision. Do not list every issue.
- Audit boxes are tools, not gates: present each as a deliberate choice point, pass/fail/skip. A
  writer may skip any box, but a skip names a reason; silent skips are not OK.
- Unlike the audit boxes above, the rubric's passes are **not** skippable. They are the AI's
  self-check, not choice points offered to the writer. Rewrites and variation sets are line
  emission: cycle [line-edit-rubric](../../context/pat-pattison/research/line-edit-rubric.md) in
  full on every candidate, pass 1 clean, and DROP any candidate a pass flagged rather than
  presenting it flagged. Two rejected executions in one slot ends generation for that slot. Hand
  the concept back per `/songwriting:co-write` Handlers.
- `variations` output reaches the writer as full section blocks IN CONTEXT. Changed lines marked
  `►`, one labeled block per variation, 3-4 per chat menu; scansion maps and per-candidate craft
  notes go to the `variations/` file. Never a bare one-line candidate in a table. Writer-requested,
  2026-08-12. See [variations](../../context/pat-pattison/research/variations.md) "Presenting the
  candidates. Chat vs file".
- `variations` and `audit` judge candidates against the WRITER's register, not genre and not
  taste. Load [voiceprint](../../context/pat-pattison/research/voiceprint.md); if none exists,
  name that as a skipped gate instead of ruling on register anyway.
- If the user pastes an incomplete fragment/idea/half-song, this is the wrong skill. Route to
  `/songwriting:workflow` (`fragment` / `idea`) by invoking it via the Skill tool, not `diagnose`.

## Persistence and template overrides

Write generated files to the paths in
[artifact-persistence](../../context/pat-pattison/research/artifact-persistence.md)
"Where generated work persists", and honor a consuming project's own songwriting layout when it
defines one. Before loading any bundled `templates/<name>.md`, check
`${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}/songwriting/templates/pat-pattison/<name>.md` first: a project-level
override wins over the bundled skill default, first match, per that file's "Template override".

## Related skills

- Blank page, seed, or stuck fragment → `/songwriting:workflow`
- The craft dimensions a diagnosis names → `/songwriting:rhyme`, `/songwriting:meter-prosody`,
  `/songwriting:song-form`, `/songwriting:object-writing`