Curd count — recommendation driver

Runs after Curdle writes the spec, before the Handoff menu renders. Pushes the parse-and-count work into a Python script so the recommendation is deterministic and stays out of the conversation's token budget.

What it answers

Which downstream skill should hold the (recommended) slot in the Handoff menu — /cheese-factory, /ultracook, or /cook?

/cook --auto is a user-opt-in alternative the menu always offers in the non-decomposable low/medium branch, but it is never a recommended pick: per existing mold rules, "Never pre-select; auto mode is opt-in" — so the script does not consider it.

/cheese-factory's own trigger is "decomposes into 5+ independent behavioural curds". Below that count, the choice between /cook and /ultracook is driven by the shape-check's blast-radius verdict.

Procedure

After curdle.md writes the spec to disk, run the script and read the JSON digest into context:

SPEC=$(python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/mold.pyz artifact-path specs <slug>)
python3 ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/mold.pyz curd-count "$SPEC" \
  --blast-radius <low|medium|high>

Pass the --blast-radius value verbatim from the shape-check verdict line (see shape-check.md). If shape-check was skipped or its verdict was [?], omit the flag — the recommendation will degrade to /cook for sub-threshold specs.

Signals counted

Signal	Source in the spec
goals	Bullets under ## Goals
quality_gates	Bullets under ## Quality gates (also matches ## Acceptance criteria for legacy specs) — reported, not counted
decisions	Bullets under ## Decisions (reported but not used in the rule)

candidate_curds = goals — only distinct behavioural goals drive the count. quality_gates (acceptance criteria) and decisions are reported as signals but deliberately excluded from the count: they are facets of one coherent change, not independent file-disjoint curds. Counting acceptance criteria as curds inflated the recommendation toward /cheese-factory for single coherent refactors whose own criteria reference the same files (issue #111) — the more thoroughly a spec was written, the more likely it mis-recommended fan-out.

Decision rule

The script only picks among the three skills that can hold the (recommended) slot. --auto variants (/cook --auto, etc.) are user-opt-in alternatives surfaced by the Handoff menu — the script never recommends them, because "Never pre-select; auto mode is opt-in" is an existing mold rule.

candidate_curds	blast_radius	Recommended
≥ 5	any	/cheese-factory
< 5	high	/ultracook
< 5	medium, low, or unknown	/cook

Digest shape

{
  "spec_path": ".cheese/specs/<slug>.md",
  "slug": "<slug>",
  "blast_radius": "high",
  "candidate_curds": 7,
  "signals": {"goals": 7, "quality_gates": 6, "decisions": 3},
  "threshold": 5,
  "decomposable": true,
  "recommended_skill": "/cheese-factory",
  "rationale": "7 candidate curds >= 5 threshold",
  "notes": [
    "Count is a signal, not a verdict.",
    "candidate_curds = goals only; acceptance-criteria / quality-gate count does not drive it (issue #111).",
    "Confirm curd independence (criterion 4: file-disjoint) before dispatching /cheese-factory."
  ]
}

Independence is the user's call

The script counts; it cannot verify that the candidate curds are file-disjoint (/cheese-factory's criterion 4) from spec text alone. Before dispatching /cheese-factory, mold must confirm independence with the user — typically by naming the file footprints captured in ## Interface sketches and asking whether any two candidate curds touch the same file. If they do, the recommended slot should fall back to /ultracook even when the count clears the threshold.

When tilth / Python is unavailable

The script depends only on the Python 3 stdlib. If the host has no python3, mold falls back to the pre-script Handoff: blast-radius alone picks /ultracook (high) or /cook (low or medium) for the (recommended) slot, and /cheese-factory appears in the option list with a manual "if this spec decomposes into 5+ independent curds, pick this" tagline. /cook --auto stays where it always lives — as a user-opt-in alternative in the non-decomposable low/medium menu, never the recommended pick. Say the substitution out loud.