Context Gather — State Assessment

Phase 0 of every mining session. Execute this skill completely before generating any signals. The output is a strategy recommendation with justification.

What to Read (in order)

Execute these steps sequentially. Each builds on the previous.

1. Submitted Book

Read all files in data/book/. For each entry, note:

• Alpha ID, grade (SPECTACULAR / EXCELLENT / GOOD / AVERAGE)
• Signal family (reversal, fundamental, analyst, sentiment, options, blend)
• Key fields used in the expression

Count: total submitted, by grade, by family. Identify which families are saturated (3+ entries) vs underrepresented (0-1 entries).

2. Hard Rules

Read ALL files in data/knowledge/rules/. These are inviolable constraints. Violations waste budget. Common rules:

• Self-corr thresholds
• Flag-ret correlation limits
• Volume interaction restrictions
• Saturation limits per family

3. Dead Zones

Read ALL files in data/knowledge/dead_zones/. These are datasets, fields, families, or approaches proven to produce no signal. Never test these again unless the hypothesis explicitly explains why prior tests were insufficient.

4. Opportunities

Read ALL files in data/knowledge/opportunities/. Distinguish between:

• Hypothesis/idea items (high-priority mechanisms to test) — these drive HYPOTHESIS mode if present and not closed/exhausted.
• Submit-candidate files (type: submit-candidate / submit-*.md) — these are the submission queue, NOT exploration ideas. Ignore them for strategy selection.

Skip any files with status: closed or priority: exhausted/resolved.

5. Recent Sessions

Read meta.md from the 3-5 most recent data/sessions/*/ directories (sorted by date descending). Understand:

• What was tried recently
• What worked and what didn't
• Whether there's a multi-session arc in progress
• Budget consumption trend

6. HF Server Health

Run:

uv run python3 scripts/hf_query.py --stats

Note: total jobs queued, running, completed. Check daily budget remaining. If server is unhealthy or queue is full, adjust plan accordingly.

7. New Discoveries

Run:

uv run python3 scripts/hf_query.py --new-24h

Check for new gate-passers that appeared since the last session. Note the mechanism family of each. Only gate-passers from genuinely new mechanism families (not IV-spread, analyst revision, or fundamental blend) are candidates for EXPLOIT mode. Gate-passers from known families are useful context but should not override the EXPLORE-first default.

8. Novelty Rule

Read data/knowledge/rules/novelty-required.md. This defines the structural novelty gate that applies to all EXPLORE sessions (the default mode).

Strategy Assessment

Based on what you read, recommend ONE strategy. Evaluate top-to-bottom (first match wins). The canonical decision tree lives in mining-session/SKILL.md; this table is a summary:

Key principle: EXPLORE is the default. The book is near saturation with known patterns; novel expression structures are the highest-value use of budget.

Output

State the following before proceeding to signal generation:

STRATEGY: <one of the five modes>
TARGET: <specific template structure / mechanism interaction / opportunity being addressed>
BUDGET: <number of simulations allocated to this session>
CONSTRAINTS: <key rules that apply (include novelty-required if EXPLORE)>
RATIONALE: <1-2 sentences explaining why this strategy was chosen and which
            decision-tree step matched>