vc-feasibility-test

Output style: Follow process/development-protocols/communication-standards.md, answer-first, plain language, no unexplained jargon, TL;DR on long responses.

One-shot empirical probe skill. Used when SPEC or INNOVATE encounters an approach hinging on an unverified external/runtime/library mechanism, the question is "does this mechanism actually work the way the design assumes?", asked before the decision locks.

Boundary vs vc-test-coverage-plan

These two skills are complementary and must not be confused:

• vc-feasibility-test (this skill) = PRE-decision. "Does the mechanism work at all?" Run before SPEC/INNOVATE locks an approach, when the answer is unknown. Output: a one-shot VERDICT artifact.
• vc-test-coverage-plan = POST-plan. "How do I cover this blast radius across the 4 test tiers?" Run after a plan exists, when the design is already chosen. Output: a per-area tier table.

If the approach is already decided and you are assigning test tiers → use vc-test-coverage-plan. If you cannot decide because a mechanism is unverified → use this skill first.

When To Invoke

• When vc-spec-agent, vc-innovate-agent, or a vc-validate-agent Layer 2 dimension agent emits VC-FEASIBILITY-PROBE-NEEDED
• When a mechanism cannot be verified from source code alone
• One-shot: not an iterative loop (use vc-autoresearch for iteration)

Skill Executor

Always executed by vc-debugger (via the VC-FEASIBILITY-PROBE-NEEDED signal routing in orchestration.md). SPEC, INNOVATE, and VALIDATE Layer 2 agents do not run probes themselves.

Probe-Method Taxonomy (pick one family)

Every probe belongs to one of these 8 families. Name the chosen family in the VERDICT. Each family has a default cost/safety class (see next section), the probe inherits it.