Migrate Research

Use this skill when multiple styles share a migration failure pattern or when a rich input pass needs classification before changing citum_migrate.

Read first:

• docs/policies/STYLE_WORKFLOW_DECISION_RULES.md
• docs/guides/STYLE_WORKFLOW_EXECUTION.md
• docs/specs/MIGRATE_RESEARCH_RICH_INPUTS.md
• docs/guides/AGENT_SKILLS.md
• docs/guides/JJ_AI_CHANGE_STACK.md when .jj is present and the research pass needs an isolated local change

Use When

• The goal is converter improvement, not a style YAML patch.
• Several styles fail for the same reason.
• You need bounded evidence before deciding whether to fix migration, style, processor, or adjudication.

Operating Rules

• Start with the smallest trustworthy evidence surface.
• Report the target's coverage-audit status as current, stale, or not registered using node scripts/check-style-coverage-audits.js --status <style-id>. Use a current packet to choose one bounded cluster, reject a stale packet, and do not create one for an unregistered style.
• State the target semantic class and implementation form before proposing a fix.
• Classify each cluster as migration-artifact, style-defect, processor-defect, or intentional divergence. For type- or field-population-shaped clusters, run the conversion-layer pre-flight from the shared decision rules (docs/policies/STYLE_WORKFLOW_DECISION_RULES.md) before classifying.
• Record the selected parent style when the target is a known wrapper.
• Preserve the config-wrapper contract for profile + config-wrapper targets.
• Treat journal + structural-wrapper as a valid endpoint; do not force thin-wrapper reduction.
• If a migration-side fix would require local templates or local type-variants in a profile, stop and reroute or escalate instead of breaking the profile contract.
• Stop when the cluster is clearly out of scope or converged.
• Keep the loop bounded to one cluster per pass.
• Never attribute a cluster to citum-migrate from a hand-authored coverage packet. Require a fresh migrated candidate from the relevant CSL source and reproduce the cluster before calling it a converter defect.

Output

Report the chosen cluster, coverage-audit status, semantic class, implementation form, selected parent if any, classification, before/after evidence, disposition and parity deltas when registered, exact change made if any, and whether the pass should continue, stop, or escalate.

Self-Improvement

When you reach a dead end not covered by the operating rules — a cluster pattern that doesn't fit the four classifications, a stop condition missing from the guides, or a migration artifact the evidence ladder doesn't anticipate — record the insight as a concrete bullet here and include the file update in the same commit or PR. Future research passes start with a richer surface.

• (2026-06-10) Corpus-level cluster selection: before opening a pass, run node scripts/report-migrate-sqi.js --corpus random --seed 20260610 and pick the cluster by reach from its fidelity headline + failure taxonomy, not from the curated lab corpus alone. The random baseline and current cluster table live in docs/architecture/audits/2026-06-10_MIGRATE_RANDOM_SAMPLE_BASELINE.md.
• (2026-06-10) A processor hard-fail on migrated output (e.g. a type-variants op matching no component) is always migration-artifact with an emit-time validation fix in citum-migrate plus a regression test — the converter must never emit YAML the processor rejects. No evidence ladder needed.
• (2026-06-10) Note-class run-on output (delimiters/affixes lost wholesale in full-note citation templates) is one systemic cluster, not per-style defects; do not open per-style passes for it.