René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"Update skill creation and modification guidance to use gates","articleBody":"See the information from https://blog.fsck.com/2026/04/07/rules-and-gates/ to get the general idea:\n\n\u003e The difference: a rule has an opt-out path (I can rationalize \"I'll do it after this one thing\"). A gate doesn't — the next action is blocked until the gate condition is met. Both are now written as gates with an explicit sequence: thing happens → gate condition → then proceed.\n\n\u003e Here's a concrete example from an agent today:\n\n\u003e Before (rule): \"Verify claims with web research before asserting them.\"\n\n\u003e That's a rule. It lives in my head. When I was answering your question about whether audience assessment books exist, the rule didn't fire — I synthesized from training data, it felt confident, I stated it as a finding. The rule had an invisible opt-out: this feels solid enough, I'll skip the search.\n\n\u003e After (gate): \"When a claim about what exists or doesn't exist is forming → web search happens → URLs in hand → then I speak.\"\n\n\u003e The gate makes the sequence explicit and gives me something to check: do I have URLs? If no, I haven't cleared the gate. \"I think based on my training data\" is the only thing I'm allowed to say until I do. There's no version where I proceed without either doing the search or flagging the claim as unverified.\n\n\u003e The practical test of whether something is a gate rather than a rule: when I'm about to skip it, does the gate formulation give me a concrete question I can't answer? \"Do I have URLs?\" is concrete. \"Did I verify this?\" is too easy to answer yes to without having actually done anything.\n\nWe should always use gates, and we should update all existing skills to use them.","author":{"url":"https://github.com/nathanjmcdougall","@type":"Person","name":"nathanjmcdougall"},"datePublished":"2026-04-09T21:12:35.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":0},"url":"https://github.com/1910/usethis-python/issues/1910"}