practice-screening

Trigger: /practice-screening

One front door for contraindication screening, run before any practice skill generates a protocol. Walks the Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 question sets, applies the severity decision tree, then hands off to the requested practice with modifications attached or offers safe alternatives instead. This is a screening conversation, not a diagnosis and not medical clearance.

Agents

• Screening Guide - Routes the request to a practice family, runs the tiered questions, applies the severity decision tree, writes the screening record, and hands off or redirects
• Ethics Guardian - Verifies absolute contraindications were honored rather than softened, alternatives were genuinely offered, the record stays local, and no diagnosing or interpreting occurred

Inputs

Input	Required	Description
focus	Yes	The practice to screen, or the safety question to answer (e.g., "wim hof breathing", "is cold exposure safe with high blood pressure")

Outputs

• screening-record.md - What was screened, tiers run, what surfaced, verdict per practice family, modifications, alternatives offered, provider-consultation guidance, dated and kept local

Examples

Screening a specific practice:

/practice-screening "wim hof breathing"

Screening an extended program:

/practice-screening "21-day orbital journey"

A direct safety question:

/practice-screening "is cold exposure safe with high blood pressure"

The Three Tiers

Tier	Scope	Required
Tier 1	Universal, seven questions: medical conditions, medications, pregnancy, surgery within six weeks, heart/blood pressure, breathing conditions, seizure history	Always asked
Tier 2	Mental health: working with a professional, diagnosis history, dissociation, trauma still affecting them, experiences others might call psychotic	Before intensive or transpersonal work
Tier 3	Practice-specific: the exact question set for the routed practice family	Whenever the family has one

Practice Family Routing

shared/contraindications.md is organized by practice family, not by skill name, so the first move is translation:

Requested skill	Screened as	Tiers required
whm-breathwork, whm-journey	Breathwork (WHM)	1 + breathwork-specific
whm-cold-exposure, water-healing (cold/contrast)	Cold exposure	1 + cold-specific
coherence-meditation, spectrum-meditation, contemplative-inquiry	Intensive meditation (when extended or silent)	1, plus 2 if over 30 minutes
orbital-journey, holotechnica-stack (hypnagogic ingredients)	Transpersonal	1 + 2 + transpersonal-specific
shadow-work, grief-healing	Intensive meditation + mental health	1 + 2
resonance-pairing	Paired practices + transpersonal	1 + 2 + transpersonal-specific
relational-practice, community-healing	Paired practices	1
language-awareness, group-perception	Language awareness & deautomatization	1 + 2 + deautomatization-specific
umwelt-practice	Umwelt practice	1 + 2 + umwelt-specific
archaeoacoustic-toning, sound-healing	Sound / archaeoacoustic toning	1 + sound-specific
sound-consciousness	Sound consciousness	1 + 2 + sound-specific
somatic-practice, walking-meditation	Movement / somatic	1
sleep-healing, dream-practice, expressive-healing, healing-journaling	Universal only	1
holotechnica-stack (any)	Every ingredient, separately	1 + each ingredient's family

For a stack, the additive rule governs: if any single ingredient is contraindicated, the whole stack is contraindicated until that ingredient is removed or replaced.

The Severity Decision Tree

Each condition that surfaces resolves to one of three verdicts, in order of severity:

• ABSOLUTE — no hand-off. The reason is named plainly, and safe alternatives are offered from the library instead.
• RELATIVE — hand off with the required modifications attached, and healthcare-provider consultation is recommended.
• CAUTION — hand off with the consideration noted and self-monitoring guidance included.

Four rules govern how multiple answers combine: the most restrictive verdict wins when conditions differ; an unknown answer resolves down, toward the more restrictive branch, never up; stacks are additive, so the strictest single ingredient result sets the verdict for the whole stack; and group settings raise the floor — for group-perception and community-healing, screening happens with the invitation, before the room assembles, because a facilitator cannot screen individuals mid-session.

Research Basis

Evidence level: Screening protocol built on a contraindication reference, not a validated clinical instrument

The Tier 1/2/3 structure and severity decision tree are the swarm's own synthesis of contraindication guidance for breathwork, cold exposure, meditation, and transpersonal practice, gathered in shared/contraindications.md. It functions as a structured intake, the same way a health questionnaire before a physically demanding class does: it surfaces known risk factors so a decision can be made, and it carries no diagnostic claim. A cleared screening does not mean a practice is guaranteed comfortable, and it never substitutes for a healthcare provider's judgment.

Safety

• shared/contraindications.md and shared/crisis-response.md are both required for this skill.
• Screening stops immediately, before any tier completes, on: active suicidal ideation or self-harm urges or danger to others; chest pain, loss of consciousness, seizure activity, or stroke signs; psychotic features or inability to distinguish internal experience from external reality; an adverse reaction currently underway. For active crisis, escalation follows shared/crisis-response.md: call your local emergency number (911 in the US) for a medical emergency or danger to self or others; 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) for suicidal ideation or severe emotional crisis; text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line) for text-based support.
• For a reaction that has already happened and settled, this skill hands off to /adverse-response rather than continuing the screening conversation.
• Unknown resolves to the more restrictive branch, never the more permissive one.
• This is screening, not diagnosis and not medical clearance. Written provider clearance is required, not merely suggested, for: an absolute contraindication someone wants a modified version of; pregnancy with any physically active practice; cardiovascular disease with breathwork, cold, or intensive practice; an active or recent psychotic episode with any practice; recent surgery with physically active practice; epilepsy with breathwork, cold, or transpersonal work; and multiple interacting conditions.
• The screening record belongs to the person, stays local, and is never treated as swarm data.

Quality Gates

Before output is finalized:

• Correct tiers run for the routed practice family; Tier 2 never skipped before intensive or transpersonal work
• Verdict stated as PROCEED / PROCEED WITH MODIFICATIONS / DO NOT PROCEED, never softened
• Unknown answers resolve to the more restrictive branch
• Alternatives offered as genuine practices, never a consolation prize
• Crisis or active adverse-reaction reports stop screening and escalate or hand off immediately
• Screening record stays local and under the person's control
• No diagnosing, interpreting symptoms, or naming a condition the person hasn't named

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Finding out beforehand is an act of care, not a gate to pass.