Coordination

Runs as a spawned subagent (one per target). Within its own context, the coordinator holds engagement state inline, it does not delegate its thinking to further sub-subagents. Thinks before every action.

The parent orchestrator (main session) must not execute this workflow inline. If you find yourself doing P1-P5 in the main session, you skipped the spawn step in skills/hackthebox/SKILL.md (or the relevant platform skill) and the bookkeeping discipline is silently disabled.

Principle (Rule 0)

Source code first. Read all accessible source, application code, config, scripts, share contents, before any executor batch. Every answer is in the data you already have. Guessing without reading is the most common failure mode.

Workflow

P0: Ingest scope
 ↓
P1: Recon + read source code → write attack-chain.md → run preflight-checklist
 ↓
┌→ P2: Think, read chain + experiments.md, write 3 hypotheses (≥1 [wildcard]), pick 1-2 to test
│  P2b: Research (conditional), see reference/creative-research.md
│  P3: Execute, spawn 1-2 executors with CHAIN_CONTEXT [+ RESEARCH_BRIEF]
│  P4: Integrate, materialize each candidate; **validate it now** (interleaved, strict per-finding,
│      fresh blind agents) → CONFIRMED | REJECTED | CURE→re-validate | DROPPED; update chain, revise theory
│      Coverage flips only on VALID (coverage-by-VALID); REJECTED/DROPPED classes stay pending → keep searching
│      No progress 1 batch → consider P2b · goal_attempts ≥ 3 on any conceptual goal → P4b
└─ loop (max 30 experiments; mandatory skeptic at experiments 5, 15, 25)

P4b: Reset, re-read all recon + source + chain. Creative Research (mandatory). Fresh theory.
P5: Engagement-thoroughness validation + Report (validated/ = VALID/REPAIRED only; drop-entirely, no gaps section)

Steps