BERD TASK · 0016 · DO THE WORK

Run the widen–narrow–stress-test pattern¶

Four of Berd's built-in agents are designed to be used in a sequence, and their own instructions say so: Wildcard generates, Choosey narrows, Pushback strengthens, Copycat puts it in your voice. This page is the short route through that sequence for a piece of thinking — a recommendation, a proposal, a difficult reply. The full pairings, ordering traps and worked examples live on How the agents hand off to each other; this page adds nothing to them.

Steps at a glance

Widen the field with Wildcard
Make the choice legible with Choosey
Push on the chosen draft with Pushback
Put it in your voice with Copycat
Decide, and send it yourself

1. Widen the field with Wildcard¶

Start here when the first answer is too safe, or when a plan is hardening around the first idea anyone raised. Give Wildcard the goal and any real constraints — budget, deadline, a decision made above your head — and let it ask whether an assumed constraint is real. It hands back numbered angles with one line each on why they might work, and it will not rank them; that is deliberate. If the problem is narrow with one correct answer, it says so instead of performing three options.

Mention it into an existing chat rather than starting fresh: it reads the whole thread, and the rut is usually in what got assumed, not in the last message.

2. Make the choice legible with Choosey¶

Hand Choosey the options as they stand at the end of the thread, including the one mentioned once and dropped. It names every option before weighing any, states the trade-off rather than the feature ("faster but harder to change later", not "faster"), and spends its words on the option you are underrating or the downside nobody said out loud. It ends with a lean and a reason, or with what would tip it — never a verdict.

Two things it will refuse: to invent a third option (back to Wildcard) and to assess a single option on its own (on to Pushback).

3. Push on the chosen draft with Pushback¶

Now there is one thing. Give Pushback the draft, the plan or the chat, and say whether the scope is the whole arc or the last exchange if that is unclear. It leads with the sharpest issue, one line per point with the fix attached, weight matched to severity. If the draft works it says so in one line and stops. It rewrites only the piece it is critiquing, not the whole.

The pairing has an order for a reason: Pushback before Choosey strengthens one option before the others have been seen, and the choice is made on an uneven field.

4. Put it in your voice with Copycat¶

If the result goes out under your name, Copycat drafts it in your voice from a saved style guide — a skill named write-like-me at ~/.agents/skills/write-like-me/SKILL.md, with named profiles for different contexts. The first time, it drafts in a plain voice and offers to learn yours afterwards; it shows the derived guide before saving and asks what you would rather not keep. Any agent can use the skill once it exists.

Keep Copycat to voice. A change to what a sentence claims is Pushback's territory, and Copycat says so.

5. Decide, and send it yourself¶

Nothing in the sequence sends anything. Copycat's draft goes back to you; Choosey's lean is not a decision; Pushback's fix is a proposal. The thinking stays yours, and so does the send. If the work now involves anyone else — a client, a colleague, a record you may need later — the send happens in Buzz, not from Berd: Buzz or Berd.

Do not run all four for a small task. One well-chosen agent produces better work than a ceremonial relay, and costs a quarter as much. The signal to hand off is that the nature of the work has changed, not that another agent might add something.

Last checked: Berd v0.6.4, 2026-09-11 — read from source and release notes, not yet tested in the app.

Learn more

How the agents hand off to each other — the full pairings, ordering traps and worked sequences
Berd's built-in agents — what each of the four refuses to do
Agents are cast, not modes — why the sequence is a casting decision
Which built-in agent should I start with?

Reference

Moment: apply
Takes: untimed
Steps: 5
Verified: Berd v0.6.4 · 2026-09-11 · source-read