Harvest

Elicit tacit preferences, positions, constraints, and knowledge, then preserve an attributed synthesis. A harvest maps choices; it does not force convergence.

When to invoke

Run an adaptive harvest — directed elicitation that extracts, deepens, and synthesizes what people think about a topic. Use for 'harvest', 'run a harvest', 'align the team on', or a structured interview; not for a casual question or fixed survey.

Load the cognitive contracts

Read these completely before questioning:

• .claude/skills/harvest/PROCESS.md — adaptive elicitation rhythm
• .claude/skills/harvest/QUESTION_PALETTE.md — intent, move, answer shape
• .claude/skills/harvest/FORMAT.md — evidence-bound synthesis grammar

Use AUDIT.md §14 only when a pasted decision-surface return requires its review grammar. Its historical graph/file persistence recipes are not an execution contract; Runtime adapters below own persistence.

Seed

Parse topic plus optional --respondents, --seed, --resume, and --mode blind|disclosed|comparative. Reuse attached EGREGORE_ORG_CONTEXT_V1; do not repeat retrieval or reopen supplied sources. If a named gap remains, make one bin/search.sh query episode and open only the missing canonical evidence. Do not query infrastructure directly.

Make low-confidence RoleSheet assumptions visible. In blind mode, other respondents' answer content neither appears nor shapes their questions. For a blind shared-artifact round, dispatch the frozen question set unchanged.

Elicit

Apply PROCESS.md's seed → generate → evaluate → checkpoint → cascade → synthesize rhythm:

• Ask one interaction at a time and always allow freeform correction.
• Record a questionIntent and evidence-bound evaluation for each answer.
• Watch for satisficing and sycophancy; name real tensions.
• Offer checkpoints at natural transitions and respect “I'm done.”
• Attribute disclosed positions. Never turn a majority into anonymous team alignment.
• While collection is open, a respondent may correct their answer. After the declared completion condition seals the evidence, a changed position starts a new round; there is no automatic second pass.

For an absent respondent, create one authorized canonical question per turn:

bash bin/question.sh create \
  --from "{initiator}" --to "{respondent}" \
  --topic "{topic}" --question "{question}" \
  --harvest-id "{harvest_id}" \
  --harvest-session-id "{harvest_session_id}" \
  --turn "{turn}" --question-intent "{intent}" \
  --context-mode "{blind|disclosed|comparative}"

This records the pending question; it does not notify anyone. Delivery requires a separate action permission and exact recipient/message consent.

Decision-shaped rounds

For three or more genuine interrelated forks, use the existing Meridian decision-surface renderer and QUESTION_PALETTE modes. Self surfaces may remain local. Do not publish, share, or deliver a directed surface implicitly. A separate permitted, explicitly consented action is required. Absorb returned answers into the evidence set; keep UNDECIDED open. Do not write graph or event-log projections directly.

Synthesize and write once

Build the attributed layered synthesis from FORMAT.md. Every assertion must trace to a recorded answer or marked seed. Show the synthesis and wait for acceptance or edits. Then render one complete Markdown body to a temporary file under tmp/ and make exactly one canonical synthesis write; {synthesis-file} is that file, {synthesis-title} is the accepted topic followed by — harvest synthesis, and {topic} and {workstream} come from the accepted synthesis:

bash bin/knowledge.sh create \
  --type finding --subtype harvest-synthesis \
  --title '{synthesis-title}' \
  --input '{synthesis-file}' \
  --topic harvest --topic '{topic}' \
  --workstream '{workstream}'

The Runtime owns ActorContext authorization, stable provenance, Markdown/Git, retrieval refresh, background embedding, and content-free telemetry. Do not run a second save, index, graph, publish, share, or notification action.

Render the compact ⊙ HARVEST completion with topic, respondents, disclosure mode, canonical path, and writeback status. Canonical Markdown wins over every optional projection.