Oracle Review

---
name: oracle-review
description: Run an external frontier-model referee (Claude Code -> GPT-5.6 Sol Pro via the Oracle CLI) on a paper, proof, estimator, or replication package -- and adjudicate what comes back. Use when the user says "send this to oracle", "get an external review", "run a referee round", "deep-check this proof", or before a submission when an independent second opinion is worth more than another in-house pass. Never launches bare: brief first, evidence-forcing prompt, coverage manifest, then CONFIRMED/REFUTED/DOWNGRADED triage.
allowed-tools: ["Read", "Grep", "Glob", "Bash", "Write", "Agent", "Task"]
disable-model-invocation: true
metadata:
  protocol: threat-prioritization
---

# Oracle review — an independent referee, then an honest triage

**Never launch a bare Oracle run.** This skill is the driver; the mechanics and the full
contract live in [`external-oracle-process.md`](../../references/external-oracle-process.md).
Read it before the first run in a project — it carries setup, flags, artifact layout, the
payload cliff, and the failure modes that have actually cost runs.

Compose with [`/credible-claims`](../credible-claims/SKILL.md) (the brief before, the claim
record after) and [`/deep-audit`](../deep-audit/SKILL.md) (exhaustive in-house coverage first,
so the oracle is **confirmation, not discovery**).

## 1. Brief before launch (5 lines)

- **Question** — what must this review answer? (correctness audit? venue-referee simulation?
  confirm N named fixes cleared?)
- **Scope** — what is IN, and what is **HELD** (standing rulings; list them so triage can filter).
- **Completion** — what verdict or evidence ends this run.
- **Required evidence** — findings carry location + failing case, or they do not count.
- **Escalation** — which finding types come back to the user before any fix: estimand changes,
  assumption concessions, reporting-language downgrades.

## 2. Assign coverage — never let the referee sample

Maintain a **statement inventory** and a cross-round **coverage ledger**. Each round *assigns*
what to audit and requires the referee to report what it actually verified, so union coverage
reaches 100% instead of drifting toward whatever is easiest to read.

## 3. Launch

Mechanics, flags, and gotchas: the reference, §2–§3. Smoke-test first; check `--files-report`
against the payload cliff; a run with no conversation URL never happened.

## 4. Triage — adjudicate, never ingest

Every finding is a **CANDIDATE**. Hand the batch to
[`/adjudicate-review`](../adjudicate-review/SKILL.md): judge each against the actual text,
**compute the computable first**, filter the HELD list, and assign
**CONFIRMED / REFUTED / DOWNGRADED**.

> Oracle agreeing with your own reading is **not** independent confirmation — different models
> correlate on the same wrong answer.

## 5. Fix, converge, record

**Batch every confirmed fix in one pass**, re-verify, then run **at most one** confirmation
round. Converged when a round returns no new CONFIRMED correctness defect — only held items and
exposition taste. Close with a **claim record**: what was fixed (location + evidence), what was
REFUTED and why, what is unresolved, and which decisions are the user's.

## Cross-references

- [`external-oracle-process.md`](../../references/external-oracle-process.md) — **the mechanics**, and the five credibility questions the findings must be sorted into
- [`/adjudicate-review`](../adjudicate-review/SKILL.md) — the triage half
- [`/credible-claims`](../credible-claims/SKILL.md) — brief before, claim record after
- [`/deep-audit`](../deep-audit/SKILL.md) — in-house coverage first
- [`verification-ladder.md`](../../references/verification-ladder.md) — rung 6; why the oracle comes last