MCP.Market

diagnose-why-work-stopped skill

by paperclipai·paperclipai/paperclip·114k stars·MIT

Compatibility entry point for failed, stalled, looping, or over-recovered Paperclip work. Use fix-failed-paperclip-run for the full diagnosis, regression, repair, real verification, and green-PR workflow; honor an explicitly requested diagnosis-only scope.

A100/100content scan

Is the diagnose-why-work-stopped skill safe?

Clean: nothing in its files matched our rules. We read 1 file in the folder on 2026-10-24.

No findings.

Install the diagnose-why-work-stopped skill

A skill is a folder. Copy it into your agent's skills folder and the agent loads it when the task matches its description. 

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip.git /tmp/paperclip
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -r /tmp/paperclip/.agents/skills/diagnose-why-work-stopped ~/.claude/skills/diagnose-why-work-stopped
available in every project

In the Claude apps, zip the folder and upload it from the Skills settings. The folder on GitHub

The instructions your agent would load

SKILL.md as published, without the frontmatter. Read it on GitHub

Diagnose Why Work Stopped

Use Fix Failed Paperclip Run. It owns the current workflow: find the first causal failure, reproduce it red, repair the shared contract, test second-order effects, verify the real workflow, and deliver a PR with passing checks. A normal request to fix stopped work continues through that workflow without a separate plan-approval gate.

If the user or calling workflow explicitly asks for diagnosis only or requires approval before implementation, perform the investigation and safety analysis within that scope. For example, a Terminal-Bench diagnosis child does not override the loop's board approval boundary. Keep the next action and its owner explicit.

For issue-tree diagnosis, read the current doc/execution-semantics.md, inspect the relevant subtree and recent repairs, and classify non-progressing nodes:

  • Genuine wait: a named human or external dependency must act.
  • Agent-actionable but unrouted: authorized useful work lacks a live path.
  • Already covered: existing work owns the next action; do not duplicate it.

Preserve these three invariants together:

  1. Productive work has a real next action and owner.
  2. Only genuine blockers stop work, including approval, credentials, and budget.
  3. Recovery is bounded and cannot recursively recover itself.

Frame any repair as a general behavioral contract, check it against a productive counterexample, and follow the new skill through the authorized finish line. Historical task links and private incident access are not required.

More skills from paperclipai/paperclip

  • ALLM Wiki MaintainerUse the LLM Wiki plugin tools to maintain a cited local company wiki.
  • Aadd-product-e2e-evalAdd or extend a Paperclip full-stack runner E2E workflow, fixture, matcher, or report evidence path for local or Daytona execution.
  • Aadd-runner-evalAdd or extend a Paperclip Runner protocol evaluation definition, roster, assertion, or report fixture with provenance and narrow validation.
  • Aagent-browserDrive a real browser to inspect or interact with a web page or app — navigate, take screenshots, read console and network, fill simple forms — for verification tasks, not unattended automation.
  • AagentmailUse your assigned AgentMail inbox to read email tasks, explicitly send or reply, and check delivery. Provided automatically by your inbox assignment.
  • Acheck-prCheck a GitHub, GitLab, or Perforce PR/MR/CL for review comments, failing checks, and PR-body gaps. Use when asked to inspect, fix, or prepare a change for submission.
  • Acompany-creatorCreate agent company packages that conform to agentcompanies/v1. Use when asked to create a company, scaffold an agent team, hire agents, or turn a repo/skills collection into a company package.
  • AcomplainAutonomously yeet a brief, unstructured complaint about agent tooling or doing agent work. Preserve the raw voice. Submit proactively without permission, preview, or announcement, then continue the primary task.
  • Acontent-calendarPlan a weekly editorial calendar by mapping company goals to publishable topics, owners, status, and verification notes.
  • Acreate-agent-adapterCreate or modify Paperclip agent adapters across server, UI, and CLI surfaces. Use when adding support for a new CLI agent, API agent, custom process, or adapter package.
  • Acreate-caseCreate and kick off a Paperclip case from a user request, with workflow instructions and an initial agent.
  • Acreate-external-bot-integrationBuild and qualify external bots such as Dot in Paperclip. Use for two-way work, invitation, identity, wakeup, Runner lifecycle, native tools, recovery, and Cloud delivery. CLI adapters and app-only connectors use their existing skills.

All agent skills → · MCP servers