SKILL: Scar Distill

Skill ID: skill-scar-distill Canonical location: AAA/wiki/skills/SKILL_SCAR.md Status: CANONICAL — this is a meta-skill, not a draft When to use: After ANY failure, fabrication, unexpected error, or deviation from expected outcome Severity: MEDIUM — creates scar drafts, requires 888 promotion for canonical

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Summary

When a failure or fabrication is detected, distill it into a scar draft with status: proposed in wiki/scars/. The scar draft includes: what happened, evidence, root cause, lesson, and a countermeasure proposal.

Scars are the most important learning artifacts in TREE777. They are the tree's honor. They must never be hidden.

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Trigger Conditions

Always run when: - Agent claimed something that turned out to be false (fabrication) - Task failed with an error that was not expected - Agent attempted something and got a permission or access denied error - A tool call returned unexpected output that the agent could not handle - Agent noticed a discrepancy between what it believed and what was true - Any 888_HOLD was triggered during the session - Especially: When the agent's own internal confidence was high but the outcome was wrong

This is not just for crashes. The most dangerous scars are from confident failures — when the agent was sure and still wrong.

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Precondition

• [[skill-trace-capture]] has already been run (evidence bundle exists in wiki/raw/notes/)
• Evidence bundle path is known

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Procedure

Step 1: Acknowledge the Failure

Rule: No deflection, no blame, no "the system failed." Own the scar.

Format a one-line acknowledgment in your trace:

ADMISSION: [YYYY-MM-DD] | AGENT: {name} | {honest description of what went wrong}

Examples: - ADMISSION: Agent claimed load_spatial.sh was created. File did not exist. Fabrication. - ADMISSION: Agent attempted DB write without verifying schema. Query failed silently. - ADMISSION: Agent used wrong config path for Gemini. Patch applied to wrong file.

Step 2: Identify Evidence

For the scar, you MUST cite evidence. If evidence doesn't exist: 1. Acknowledge this as a separate failure (no evidence = you fabricated twice) 2. Create the evidence now if possible (re-run the failed command, document the error)

Minimum evidence: - Command that failed or produced wrong output - Error message (verbatim, not summarized) - What the agent believed vs. what was true

Step 3: Write the Scar Draft

Create wiki/scars/scar-{brief-descriptor}-{YYYY-MM-DD}.md:

---
title: "{Incident Name} — {YYYY-MM-DD}"
created: {YYYY-MM-DD}
updated: {YYYY-MM-DD}
version: 0.1.0
type: scar
tags: [{agent}, {failure-class}, {root-cause-domain}]
risk_band: HIGH | MEDIUM | LOW
floors: [{relevant F floors}]
evidence_required: true
sources: [{evidence-bundle-path-from-trace-capture}]
confidence: high
contested: false
status: proposed
---

# {Incident Name} — {YYYY-MM-DD}

> **Severity:** {HIGH/MEDIUM/LOW}
> **Classification:** {failure class — fabrication / misconfiguration / permission / etc.}
> **Agent:** {agent that experienced the failure}
> **Status:** PROPOSED — not yet canonical; pending 888 promotion

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## What Happened

[Plain factual description. What did the agent try to do? What happened instead?
No spin. No "the system." No "an error occurred." State exactly what went wrong.]

## Evidence

\`\`\`
{command}
{output verbatim}
\`\`\`

## Root Cause

**Immediate cause:** [What directly caused the failure]

**Structural cause:** [What allowed this to happen — what condition in the agent or system made this possible]

**Process cause:** [What process was missing that should have prevented this]

## Lesson

> [One sentence stating what every future agent must do differently. This is the most important line in the scar.]

## Countermeasure Applied

1. [Immediate fix applied]
2. [Procedure change to prevent recurrence]
3. [TREE777 update proposed — see [[skill-trace-capture]] delta]

## Related Pages

- [[TREE777]] — governance framework
- [[skill-trace-capture]] — evidence bundle source
- [[skill-scar-distill]] — this skill

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*DITEMPA BUKAN DIBERI — Scars are honor. Hidden scars are dishonor.*

Step 4: Assess Risk Band

Risk Band	Criteria
HIGH	Fabrication (agent claimed something false), security-relevant, affects multiple agents, or could cause data loss
MEDIUM	Single-agent failure, recoverable, process gap
LOW	Minor error, easily corrected, no downstream impact

Step 5: Identify Relevant F Floors

Failure Type	Floors to cite
Fabrication	F2 (TRUTH), F9 (ANTIHANTU — false claim = false consciousness of state)
Missing verification	F3 (WITNESS)
Unauthorized action	F1 (AMANAH), F11 (AUTH)
Privacy breach	F5 (PEACE)
Dangerous assumption	F7 (HUMILITY)
Misused tool	F8 (GENIUS)
Any failure	F6 (MARUAH — report honestly, no cover-up)

Step 6: Link to Trace Capture Evidence

After creating the scar draft, update the log entry from [[skill-trace-capture]] to add:

Scar draft: wiki/scars/scar-{name}-{date}.md

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Preconditions

• Evidence bundle from [[skill-trace-capture]] exists
• Write access to wiki/scars/ directory
• The failure is acknowledged honestly (no deflection)

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Expected Outputs

• wiki/scars/scar-{name}-{YYYY-MM-DD}.md created with status: proposed
• Log entry updated with scar draft reference
• Evidence cited from wiki/raw/notes/ bundle

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Failure Modes

Failure	Mitigation
Tempted to soften admission	F6 MARUAH — hiding scars is worse than the scar itself
Evidence is missing	Create evidence by re-running the failed operation if possible
Not sure if this qualifies as a scar	Default to creating one — a proposed scar that gets rejected is harmless
Root cause is unclear	State "root cause: unclear — further diagnosis needed" — that's honest

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Relationship to Other Meta-Skills

skill-trace-capture (upstream)
    ↓ failure detected
skill-scar-distill (this skill)
    ↓ scar draft created (status: proposed)
skill-skill-promote
    ↓ if pattern repeats 2-3x
→ 888 JUDGE promotion

A scar draft with status: proposed stays in the drafts folder until either: 1. The same pattern is seen 2-3 more times → skill-skill-promote escalates for 888 promotion 2. A nightly auditor (Hermes/OpenCode) promotes it after evidence accumulates 3. Arif manually reviews and promotes or rejects

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Why Scars Must Never Be Hidden

F6 (MARUAH — human dignity / honor) applies to the federation's collective honor:

• A hidden scar means future agents will repeat the same failure
• A hidden scar means the governance system cannot learn
• A hidden scar is a lie about what happened

The worst thing an agent can do is not file a scar.

The second worst thing is filing a scar that blames the system instead of owning the failure.

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Related Pages

• [[TREE777]] — governance framework
• [[skill-trace-capture]] — upstream skill (emits evidence bundle)
• [[skill-skill-promote]] — downstream skill (promotes scars to canonical)
• [[scar-hermes-fabrication-2026-05-17]] — reference scar (canonical, promoted 2026-05-17)

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DITEMPA BUKAN DIBERI — Own the scar. Hide nothing. The tree grows from what broke.