/apply Step 3's reviewer agent and /interview Step 2 each independently
execute the Company Research Checklist (04-job-evaluation.md) for the
same company - applying to a role and later prepping for its interview
researches the company twice from scratch, same WebSearch/WebFetch cost
both times, no sharing between the two commands.
Adds a company_research/<normalized-name>.json cache (30-day TTL) that
either consumer checks before researching and writes after a fresh
pass. Defined once in 04-job-evaluation.md, next to the checklist it
mirrors, so both commands point at one source instead of restating the
schema. Does not change the verification model: 03-writing-style.md
rule 5 already treats reviewer-agent research as a lead, not a source,
requiring independent re-confirmation before any company claim ships
in a final artifact - the cache stores source URLs alongside each
fact so that re-confirmation stays cheap, but the requirement itself
is untouched and restated in both consumers.
company_research/*.json added to .gitignore and security_guards.py's
REQUIRED_IGNORE_RULES as a plain rooted pattern (not **/-prefixed):
the cache is referenced from commands, not a skill, so it resolves
against the repo root normally, unlike job_scraper/upskill's
skill-relative paths.
Pinned by tests/test_company_research_cache.py, mirroring the
spec-pinning pattern in test_rank_command.py and test_onboarding_privacy.py.
The write-back assertions for both apply.md and interview.md were
verified to actually fail against the regression they guard (the
instruction stripped, confirmed the test catches it, restored) before
being considered done - the write half is the one most likely to be
dropped silently in a future edit, since the read half is the more
obvious change to make.
framework_version bumped 1.2.4 -> 1.2.5 in 04-job-evaluation.md, the
only touched file inside the tracked skill set.
Follow-up suggested during PR #275's merge review: spec-pinning tests for
the language_gate/language_note fields, matching the pattern already used
for the sibling gaps/strengths fields in this same file.
Four new assertions: Step 2's scoring-agent JSON schema declares both
fields with the PASS/FAIL/FLAG enum and distinguishes them from the
pre-existing `language` field; Step 3 documents the Language veto rule
mirroring the existing Location veto; Step 4 persists both fields into
seen_jobs.json; Step 5's presentation rules document the FLAG marker.
The Step 4 persistence test is a real regression guard, not just
documentation: language_gate/language_note were computed in Step 2 and
used to decide Step 3's veto, but an earlier version of this spec never
instructed Step 4 to actually write them to seen_jobs.json - caught via
live debugging (a real /rank run showed language_gate: null on every
entry despite the run reporting genuine vetoes), fixed once already.
Verified live that this test fails against that exact regression and
passes against the current (fixed) spec text.
Nothing in the framework checks a posting's language requirements
against what the candidate actually speaks. It is not one of the five
Scoring Dimensions in 04-job-evaluation.md, it is not checked in
/scrape's Step 3 fit assessment, and it is not a field in /rank's JSON
output - even though /apply's Step 1 already extracts a posting's
required language generically, with nowhere to report a mismatch to.
This adds a Language Gate, structured like the existing Eligibility
Gate (read the posting, classify against profile data, hard-stop on a
real mismatch), built on a new structured Languages table in CLAUDE.md
/ 01-candidate-profile.md. /setup now asks for it directly (Path C), or
infers it from a CV/LinkedIn export (Paths A/B - LinkedIn exports
already carry a self-rated Languages section).
The gate compares a posting's stated language requirements against
that table with three outcomes:
- Requires a language not declared at all -> hard FAIL, never
presented.
- Requires a higher level in a language that is declared (e.g. "fluent
English" against a declared B1/B2) -> FLAG, not an auto-reject -
scored and drafted normally, with the gap surfaced so the candidate
judges it themselves (a "fluent" bar reads very differently from a
strict employer vs. one that's flexible on it).
- Requires a language at or below the declared level -> clean PASS.
Wired through the three places that need it: /scrape (Step 3), /rank
(new language_gate/language_note fields alongside the existing
location veto - both are now persisted to seen_jobs.json, not just
used transiently to decide one run's shortlist), and /apply (Step 1's
language extraction now has somewhere to report to).
Out of scope, deliberately: this does not touch the free-form
Deal-breakers list or how it's used elsewhere (e.g. Scoring Dimension
4's relocation check) - that's a separate question this change takes
no position on.
Validated with two live-testing passes against real, unfetched
postings (not fabricated text) across 3 portals and 3 market languages
(Danish, German, Spanish/Argentina): 8/8 postings gated correctly in
the first pass, including ambiguous real-world wording ("you
communicate well in English") a rigid rule would have gotten wrong. A
second pass, run specifically to force a hard-FAIL case, found one
(a Danish posting requiring the ability to read Danish) and confirmed
it persists correctly and would be excluded from /rank's shortlist.
Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Gabriel Ignacio Mensi