reasoning-orchestrator

The primary coordination mechanism of the Reasoning Discipline Protocol (roadmap L6). It is behavioral glue — like subagent-orchestration and feature-planning — that sequences the discipline so it acts as one system instead of a buffet of optional steps. It composes the underlying skills/rules; it never re-implements them, and it adds no new flow (it is invoked within discovery/implementation, honoring src/flows/README.md).

Engage per rdp-gate: skip on trivial tasks; on a strong-reasoning host run light / as suggestion (it self- coordinates); on a standard host run the full chain.

When to use

Scope (eval-calibrated, L6): engage only for interdependent multi-step work — multiple steps whose ordering and handoffs matter (schema → API → job → UI; a staged migration; a cross-cutting refactor). Not for single-turn analysis (explain / name / yes-no / pick-X-or-Y / one-shot edit): there the ordered chain is a no-op and only adds tokens.

• An interdependent multi-step task on a standard host. Analyze the dependency structure (what blocks what) before acting.
• Work where a missed or out-of-order link (grounding, verification) compounds downstream.

Do NOT use for trivial / linear / fully-specified tasks or single-turn analysis (the gate filters these), and do not let it duplicate the work of the skills it coordinates.

Why scoped (L6, 2026-06-22). A controlled distributed-vs-orchestrated eval (N=16, independent rater) found the ordered chain gains +19.2% on multi-step work but −1.1% (a no-op) on single-turn reasoning. The standard host classifies multi-step vs single-turn at gate time with 16/16 accuracy, and a misclassification degrades gracefully (wrong arm is still functional). The revert trigger is a re-run of tests/reasoning-layer-eval (the eval is the telemetry — this is a no-runtime package); RDP flip conditions are judged per-mechanism, never on a univariate aggregate. Evidence: tests/reasoning-layer-eval/RESULTS-L6-largeN-2026-06-22.md.

When the agent should load this

• A task is complex / ambiguous / long-horizon and the host is a standard model.
• The reasoning steps are interdependent and a skipped link (grounding, verification) would compound downstream.
• Several discipline skills would otherwise fire piecemeal — load this to make them act as one ordered chain instead of a buffet of optional steps.

Procedure — the chain it enforces

Each link delegates to the artifact that owns it (no duplication):

1. ground — close constraints/tools/info-gaps before designing (think-before-action § Environment grounding); seed the read from the repo slot of the context-spine when present.
2. intent — state the inferred goal + one recommendation, standard host only (improve-before-implement § Intent inference).
3. notes — hypotheses/predictions/decisions/uncertainty to the notes file, not the response (notes-first-reasoning).
4. gather — resolve the load-bearing unknown first (complexity-first-planning); dispatch independent subtasks async (subagent-orchestration § RDP), auto-triggered by the delegation-policy rule (gates on the emergency incident switch + host manifest — always-on orchestration carries no per-layer on/off setting).
5. audit — check progress against real tool results (verify-before-complete).
6. verify — fresh-context verifier on the structural-complexity gate (adversarial-review § RDP).

Fail-safe

If the orchestrator does not fire (gate off, or the host skips it), the individual skills/rules still apply on their own triggers — the discipline degrades gracefully to the distributed extensions rather than disappearing. The orchestrator's value is coherence (the links happen in order, with handoffs), not exclusivity.

Output

The task's actual deliverable, produced through the chain (analysis before action — grounding and the load-bearing-unknown resolution precede any edit):

1. Outcome first — the response leads with the result and its evidence.
2. Reasoning stays in notes — hypotheses / predictions / decisions live in the notes file, never dumped into the response.
3. Chain honoured in order — ground → intent → notes → resolve-hardest-first → audit → verify ran as ordered links (with handoffs), not a buffet.
4. Verified before "done" — no completion claim without the verifier link's evidence.

Do NOT

• Re-implement grounding / verification / planning here — delegate.
• Create a new flow or a standalone pack — this is a skill invoked within existing flows.
• Run the full chain on a strong-reasoning host or a trivial task — the gate says light/off.

Gotchas

• Buffet collapse. Without the orchestrator, the discipline skills fire independently and the chain's order is lost (verification before grounding, notes never written). The whole value is the ordered handoff — running the links out of sequence is the failure this skill prevents.
• Duplication creep. Inlining a delegated step's logic here (re-doing the grounding instead of pointing at think-before-action) silently forks the behavior; the two copies then drift. Always delegate, never re-implement.
• Wrong host, full chain. Running every link on a strong-reasoning host wastes tokens and reads as nagging — the gate says light/suggestion there. Forcing the full chain regardless of host is a cost regression, not rigor.

Related Skills

WHEN to use this

• A complex / ambiguous / long-horizon task on a standard host where the reasoning links are interdependent.
• Several discipline skills would otherwise fire piecemeal and need ordering.

WHEN NOT to use this

• Trivial / linear / fully-specified tasks — the rdp-gate filters these.
• A single discipline step in isolation — invoke that skill/rule directly (think-before-action, verify-before-complete) instead of the whole chain.
• Needing the rationale behind the protocol — read frontier-reasoning-operating-profile.