/ratchet:prompt-audit — the library as an OS

A prompt library is not a pile of good words; it is an operating system for cognition. This command audits it as one. It does not rewrite prompts first — it diagnoses the system: what work each prompt does, which moves are missing, and where the library lets the model escape into elegant analysis instead of producing something.

Step 0 — Load the library

Take the prompt list from the argument, a file, or the current context. Do not rewrite yet.

Classify

Tag each prompt by the type of work it performs (a prompt may do more than one):

• target locking · diagnosis · artifact production · adversarial testing · decision · patching · memory/state · orchestration · compression · boundary pushing

Find the system's shape

1. Overrepresented moves — where the library is thick (usually diagnosis and "next move" prompts).
2. Missing moves — where it is thin (usually artifact production, patching, testing, serialized state).
3. Meta-looping prompts — those that ask what to ask next without ever forcing a move. These are the hallway of mirrors.
4. Artifact-producing prompts — the ones that actually leave something behind.
5. Prompts to delete or merge — redundant, vague, or low-consequence.
6. The minimum new prompt set that would outperform the current library.

The operating rule

Judge every prompt against this bar. Keep it only if it does at least one:

1. Forces a choice. 2. Creates an artifact. 3. Tests an artifact. 4. Patches a defect.
2. Serializes useful state. 6. Kills a bad option. 7. Pushes to a higher-yield move.

Everything else is smoke.

Output contract

CLASSIFICATION: <table: prompt → work type(s)>
OVERREPRESENTED: <moves the library over-does>
MISSING: <moves it lacks — the expensive gaps>
META-LOOPERS: <prompts that never force a move>
DELETE / MERGE: <the cuts>
UPGRADED SET (sequenced workflow, not a pile):
1. <prompt> — <the move it forces>
2. ...

Serialize

ratchet artifact add '{"title":"prompt-library audit","kind":"decision-record","status":"v0","holes":["..."]}'

Produce the upgraded library as a sequenced workflow — frame → choose → build → attack → patch → serialize → advance — never a flat list. Next: /ratchet:build the new set.