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arena

Spawn N parallel candidates at the same task, pick a base, graft the strongest parts of the losers into it. Use for /arena, 'arena this', 'throw it in the arena', or when one attempt at a non-trivial artifact would lock in the wrong shape.

skills/arena/SKILL.md

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# Arena

Open a todolist with one entry per phase (Frame, Fan out, Cross-judge, Pick, Graft, Verify) before launching anything.

## Phase A: Frame

Every candidate gets the same prompt, so the prompt is the contract.

1. State the artifact each candidate is producing.
2. Derive the rubric, 3-6 concrete gradeable criteria for what success looks like on *this* task. It is the picker's tool in Phase D. Candidates only see the task.
3. Pick the runners. Use the `arena runners` line in the pstack settings file (`~/.cursor/rules/pstack-models.mdc` in Cursor, `~/.claude/rules/pstack-models.md` in Claude Code, `~/.agents/pstack-models.md` in other harnesses). If the file or that line is missing, default to one each on `claude-opus-5-5-xhigh` and `grok-4.7-xhigh-fast`. An `auto` or `inherit-parent` entry in this line means the parent model, so omit `model` for it. If your subagent tool rejects a configured entry, run that seat on its family's default and say so. Families go by prefix: `claude-*`, and `grok-*` with `cursor-grok-*` and `composer-*`. A refused `composer-*` entry runs on `grok-4.7-xhigh-fast`. If the family has no default, or your subagent tool rejects that default, use the closest valid slug of the same family from its error message or your harness's model list, or drop the seat and say so when there is none. If dropped seats leave fewer than two runners, add runners until there are two, or one when the line has one entry. Run each added runner on a remaining runner's model, or omit `model` so it runs on the parent model when none remain, and say so. Spawn more runners when the arena covers multiple design directions. Use the same model N times when the work is generation-bound rather than judgment-sensitive. Pick each subagent's reasoning level and fast or standard speed for the job, per the Subagents section of the **poteto-mode** skill.
4. Give each candidate its own output location (a git worktree where possible, otherwise `/tmp/arena-<slug>/candidate-<n>/`), per the **separate-before-serializing-shared-state** principle skill.

## Phase B: Fan out