skills/ce-bakeoff/references/judging.md

# Independent assessment

A completed Bake-off includes a fresh subagent running `ce-pov` in warm/guest mode that authored no candidate, alongside the coordinator's own comparison. The judge follows POV's grounding and verdict contract; Bake-off owns its independent context and the comparison inputs. Prefer a different model family from the coordinator when available within the authorized access and budget. Independent context is required; model diversity is preferred. A fresh same-family judge is a disclosed fallback, not cross-model evidence.

## Choose available model access

Use the active host's actual delegation and model-selection capabilities. Prefer native fresh-context dispatch when it can serve the desired judge; a host with multiple model families needs no external process. Otherwise use an available authenticated model CLI or established model-access adapter within the existing authority. Discover supported invocation, model selection, read scope, result collection, and cancellation from the available capability or its current help. Do not guess model IDs or flags, install tools, change credentials, or create a new dispatch framework for one assessment. An existing caller adapter owns its mechanics when used. Before external judge dispatch, the dispatch owner briefly names the recipient and the material it will inspect, unless that recipient and scope are already disclosed. Keep this to who reviews what; omit operational detail.

Use the best authorized route that fits the remaining budget; a missing preferred interface does not establish that independent judgment is unavailable. If no route can supply a fresh judge and return or cancel within budget, report incomplete. Do not silently replace it with same-context self-review or expand the budget. Track actual dispatch and completion, and distinguish observed model identity from requested identity.

## Assessment and reconciliation

Dispatch after candidate artifacts are complete. Supply the common brief, criteria, complete candidates under neutral artifact labels, and source pointers within the permitted read scope. Withhold the coordinator's ranking and other judges' conclusions. The judge is read-only and returns its POV without a follow-up menu or downstream action. Supply access to the actual `ce-pov` skill and its references through the host's skill mechanism or current files; a role label alone does not invoke it. POV owns any grounding delegation it requires. Request a single POV, without a peer consultation summons, for the default assessment.

Give POV the developed approach set and the decision criteria. Its evidence floors apply to shared premises as well as candidate claims. Ask it to identify dependencies whose failure would change feasibility, a required guarantee, or the ranking, and distinguish source-backed conclusions from assumptions. Candidate agreement cannot corroborate an inherited premise. Consume a blocked verdict as an unresolved evidence need, not a completed endorsement.

Compare the returned assessment with your own reading, including the evidence supporting its decisive claims. Resolve consequential disagreement through source evidence and record the reason for your decision. An affirmative judge verdict does not waive the coordinator's evidence gate in `references/verification.md`. The coordinator retains selection and synthesis; a judge's recommendation is not permission to act.

Use POV's oracle panel when explicitly requested, or when a consequential disagreement survives source checking and additional perspectives could resolve it within existing authority and budget. Missing evidence needs source checking, not more votes. POV owns the panel's grounding, participation, authority, and lifecycle contracts. Pass developed candidates and require a return without a follow-up menu or downstream action. Its independent assessment can satisfy this requirement; do not launch a duplicate judge merely to fill a role. Do not silently downgrade a requested oracle to a single judge. No panel machinery belongs here.