outsource — use convertible as a different mind

outsource drives the convertible CLI so a Claude agent can hand a scoped task to a different engine (default: a local vLLM Qwen3.6-27B on :8001). Convertible's model is not assumed to be stronger than you — its value is diversity. A second, independent mind catches things the author's mind glides past, which is why review is the headline verb.

This skill is the operator: a portable wrapper that resolves the CLI and turns each verb into a convertible drive, then prints the drive's result summary.

How to run

The entry point is scripts/outsource.sh. Invoke it from the repo you want convertible to work on:

bash .claude/skills/outsource/scripts/outsource.sh <verb> "<text>" [options]

It resolves the CLI portably — an installed convertible on PATH (the normal case), falling back to uv run convertible when inside the convertible checkout, else an install hint.

Verbs

Verb	What it does	Side effects
explore "<question or area>"	Read-only investigation of the repo; the model reads and reports findings.	None — runs in a throwaway worktree at HEAD.
review "<what to focus on>" [--base main]	A diverse second opinion on the committed diff (<base>...HEAD).	None — throwaway worktree; reviews committed changes only.
write "<task>" [--pr]	Implement a change. Commits to a drive branch by default; --pr pushes + opens a PR.	In-place: a convertible/<id> drive branch (or a PR).

Options

Option	Meaning
--repo PATH	Target repo (default: .).
--base BRANCH	Base for the review diff (default: main).
--engine NAME	Engine wheel (default: $CONVERTIBLE_ENGINE or vllm-openai).
--model NAME	Model (default: $CONVERTIBLE_MODEL or mmangkad/Qwen3.6-27B-NVFP4).
--base-url URL	OpenAI base URL (default: $CONVERTIBLE_BASE_URL or http://localhost:8001/v1).
--max-steps N	Loop step budget (default: 20).
--allow-dirty	(write) allow running on a dirty tree.
--pr	(write) push + open a PR instead of a local drive branch.

The result printed to stdout is the drive's TaskResult.summary (plus changed_files / drive branch for write), parsed from convertible drive --json. Per-step progress streams to stderr while it runs.

When to reach for which verb

• review — the standing use. You wrote (or an agent wrote) a change and you want a candid, independent pass over the committed diff before you trust it. Treat the output as a second opinion to weigh, not a verdict.
• explore — you want a fresh, unbiased read of an unfamiliar area ("how does X work here?") without anchoring on your own assumptions.
• write — a small, well-scoped implementation you're happy to delegate. The result lands on a drive branch you can inspect, merge, or discard.

Hard rules (do not violate)

• explore and review are read-only. They run in a throwaway git worktree at HEAD, so a stray write can't reach your working tree or branch; the prompts also tell the model not to modify anything. Don't route a change-making task through them — use write.
• write refuses a dirty tree unless you pass --allow-dirty. This guards the dirty-tree hazard: convertible drive --no-pr commits uncommitted edits onto the drive branch and leaves you there. Commit or stash first.
• Outsourced output is a second opinion, not authority. The engine may be a smaller/different model; weigh its findings, verify its claims, and own the decision yourself.

Honest limits

• Read-only is enforced by worktree isolation + prompt constraint, not a sandbox — the loop always exposes write_file/run_command, so the model can still run arbitrary read-only commands.
• review covers committed changes only (<base>...HEAD). To review uncommitted work, commit it first.
• The default engine is whatever single model is running locally; a multi-model fleet (different model per verb) is separate infrastructure.

Provenance

This is a first-party convertible skill — agentculture/convertible is its origin. guildmaster re-broadcasts it to the mesh (the same inbound pattern as the devague-origin workflow skills), tracking it in docs/skill-sources.md. The cite, don't import policy holds: downstream repos copy it, they don't symlink or depend on it.