# Skill Compliance

Skills contain critical process constraints. Skipping them produces work that looks complete but misses quality gates.

## REQUIRED SUB-SKILL Means Invoke the Skill Tool

When a command says "REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: Use **X**", you MUST invoke the skill via the Skill tool. Do not substitute your own judgment for the skill's process.

**Red flags that indicate you are about to skip a skill:**
- "This is straightforward enough without the skill"
- "I already know how to do this"
- "The skill would just slow me down"
- "I'll follow the spirit of the skill without loading it"

If you catch yourself thinking any of these, STOP and load the skill. The skill exists because the process has constraints you will miss without it.

## Dispatch the Agent Means Use the Agent Tool

When a skill says "Dispatch the **X** subagent", you MUST call the Agent tool. Do not perform the review yourself — the subagent exists to provide independent evaluation.

## Gate Verification

Before marking any manifest gate as `gate-passed: true`:

1. Confirm the required skill was invoked via the Skill tool in this session
2. Confirm all agents specified by the skill were dispatched via the Agent tool
3. Confirm the skill's `produces` artifacts exist at the expected paths
4. If any are missing, go back and complete the requirement

A gate-enforcer hook checks `.forge/state/telemetry.jsonl` for evidence that the required skill + agent were **invoked for this work item**. If you attempt to pass a gate without those invocations, the edit will be blocked. This is invocation enforcement, not completion enforcement — the hook cannot tell whether the skill produced correct output or whether its pass criteria were actually met. Steps 1-3 above (and the user's review) cover content; the hook only guards against silent skipping. See `references/common/quality-gates.md` § "What telemetry proves (and doesn't)".