---
name: ceratops-credit-savings-analysis
description: Analyze recent Codex runs for avoidable credit spend, including deterministic rework, and recommend small prompt, rule, skill, helper, workflow, or validation controls.
---

# Ceratops Credit Savings Analysis

## Goal

Find avoidable credit spend in recent thread runs, including rework and
non-rework inefficiencies, then recommend the smallest control that would
materially reduce recurrence.

## Context

### Inputs To Capture

- Target thread or session. Use the current thread unless the user names a
  concrete thread title, thread id, or session file.
- Window under review. Use the user's `last N runs`; otherwise use visible
  recent context or the last five assistant runs.
- Evidence source: visible context, `$CODEX_HOME/session_index.jsonl`,
  `$CODEX_HOME/sessions/`, or `$CODEX_HOME/archived_sessions/`.
- Whether the task is analysis-only or the user explicitly asked to apply a
  named control change.

Ask for the missing title, id, or session file only when the target thread
cannot be identified.

## Constraints

### Skill-Specific Rules

- Count spend as avoidable only when it was preventable or reducible from
  available instructions, local evidence, stable contracts, tool output, or a
  cheap targeted check.
- Exclude ordinary model mistakes unless a concise durable producer control
  would sharply reduce the same class recurring.
- Treat preventable rework, duplicate investigation, broad reads, noisy output,
  oversized validation, stale checks, waits, reversions, and user corrections as
  candidate credit waste.
- Use credit-waste signals as prompts for analysis, not mandatory checks;
  inspect only categories visible in the selected evidence window.
- Prefer the smallest durable control: wording, deterministic helper, preflight,
  validation gate, then docs.
- For repeated stage commands, propose a narrow helper that runs the sequence
  and emits only the decision payload.
- For unnecessary file reads, propose targeted paths, sections, selectors, or
  evidence reuse.
- Do not propose broad best-practice refreshes, large instruction rewrites, or
  high-maintenance controls unless smaller controls are demonstrably inadequate.
- When the recommendation would edit instructions, skills, automations, or
  helpers, provide the exact proposed change and wait for explicit approval
  unless the user already asked to apply it.
- Before reporting recommendations, classify candidate controls against
  inspected evidence as implemented or still unimplemented; omit implemented
  controls unless needed to justify that no still-unimplemented proposal
  remains.

### Boundaries

- Use this skill for avoidable credit spend, including rework, repeated artifact
  iterations, failed output loops, stale cleanup, oversized validation,
  inefficient evidence gathering, and producer-failure analysis.
- If the active issue is one unresolved bug, use `$ceratops-fixloop-breaker` or
  `$ceratops-tasks` with the `execute-in-stages` action first.
- If the user already knows the specific rule to change, use
  `$ceratops-propose-rules-update`.

### Workflow

1. Build a compact timeline for each inspected run: goal, touched artifacts,
   checks, corrections, retries, and final state.
2. Mark each avoidable spend episode and the earliest point it could have been
   prevented or detected.
3. Review visible command, tool, and file-read choices for avoidable output
   volume, unnecessary file reads, repeated polling, and oversized validation;
   count only when a narrower command, selector, path, section, or existing
   evidence would have been sufficient.
4. Identify the producer or workflow choice that allowed the spend: prompt,
   rule, skill, automation, helper, validation, tool choice, workflow habit, or
   external dependency.
5. Choose the lowest-maintenance control that would have prevented or sharply
   reduced the spend.
6. Separate confirmed findings from plausible but unverified risks.

## Done When

### Completion Gate

- The inspected window and evidence source are stated.
- Each finding ties to a concrete episode, cause, earliest prevention point,
  recommendation type, and expected impact.
- Ordinary model failures that could be confused with avoidable credit spend are
  explicitly excluded.
- Any missing evidence or target-thread blocker is stated.

### Output Contract

Start with one of:

- `No avoidable credit spend found in the inspected runs.`
- `No still-unimplemented credit-savings proposals found in the inspected runs.`
- `Found still-unimplemented credit-savings proposals.`
- `Blocked: <specific missing evidence or target>.`

Then report only findings with still-unimplemented recommendations, excluded
ordinary failures, and important evidence limits.