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ethos-explore

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Captures what an AI agent is supposed to do — its purpose, boundaries, and success criteria — as a durable snapshot for anyone building, evaluating, reviewing, or changing it. Explores the user's codebase and docs first, then asks one intent question at a time for what source cannot supply. Hands its answers to ethos-write, which writes ethos.md. Use over generic brainstorming when the goal is an agent's ethos.md.

skills/ethos-explore/SKILL.md

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Source commit fce3cca4170be75e82c64920654d56ee2811b005

What was checked

Matches the observed repository HEAD
Yes
Scanner rules are current
Yes
Repository scan complete
No
Skill scan complete
No
Observed behavior
Network or broad shell
Last checked
Nov 9, 2026

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Repository context

Repository stars (not skill ratings)
3,913
Repository last updated
Nov 6, 2026
License
Apache-2.0

Observed agent integration: No specific integration evidence. Standard SKILL.md installation does not imply verified compatibility.

Files and excerpt

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<!-- SPDX-FileCopyrightText: Copyright (c) 2026 NVIDIA CORPORATION & AFFILIATES. All rights reserved. -->
<!-- SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 -->

# Explore an agent's intended behavior

Capture what the agent should do. Product mission and user goals matter more
than implementation inventory. The output of this skill is the data that
`ethos-write` writes into `ethos.md` — the durable contract that people and agents
read before they build, evaluate, review, or change this agent. Underspecified
input here leads every one of them to guess at intent from code and traces.

This skill is **explore first, then a mandatory intent interview.** Scan the
codebase and docs, infer implementation-shaped fields, then ask the user for
intent source cannot own. Do not skip the interview because the scan looked
complete, and do not skip a question because you think you already know the
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