What This Skill Does

Prerequisites

• Name which part of this move is real tool use versus battle-chip framing before you act.
• These procedures rely on the normal tools already present in the active Hermes runtime; this repo does not ship a separate integration layer.

Operator Inputs

• Name the branch, environment, workflow, or baseline that provides the stable ground for this aura.
• Describe what kinds of hits the defense must recover from and how much quiet time or reset discipline it needs to regrow.
• State what mobility, speed, or flexibility you are willing to give up to gain renewable protection.
• Identify what conditions would count as the ground becoming unstable and therefore breaking the aura.

Procedure

1. Restate the target, success condition, and no-touch boundaries before you spend the chip.
2. Collect the operator inputs below so the chip lands on the right panel.
3. Identify the stable ground the defense will root into: a branch, baseline, checklist, validated environment, known-good dataset, or repeatable workflow lane.
4. Establish a regenerative protection loop with checkpoints, restore points, refresh conditions, or automatic reconstitution after small impacts.
5. Hold the lane long enough to let the aura regrow, and escalate only if the ground is no longer stable enough to sustain it.
6. Package the result with concrete evidence, what stayed untouched, and the next recommended chip only if follow-up is truly needed.

Deliverables

• A rooted defensive setup that can regain protective value after contact through checkpoints, regeneration logic, or disciplined reset conditions.
• A note naming the stable ground the aura depends on and the conditions under which it regrows.
• A clear explanation of what tempo or mobility tradeoff the operator accepts in exchange for renewable protection.

Output Contract

• One rooted defensive pattern that depends on a named stable surface and can visibly recover strength after ordinary contact.
• An explicit regeneration condition: what lets the aura grow back, how the operator knows it has regrown, and what interrupts that cycle.
• A note on the tradeoff between steadiness and mobility.
• A clear failure condition showing when Wood Aura should be abandoned for Repair, Barrier, or Under Shirt.

Do Not Use For

• Rapid-response situations where you cannot hold position long enough for a defense to regrow.
• Highly volatile systems where the underlying ground, baseline, or ownership lane changes faster than the aura can reestablish.
• Scenarios where the need is aggressive noise-burning or one-pass filtering rather than rooted resilience.

Pair With

• Wood Aura + Repair: restore the damaged ground so the regenerative defense has something real to root into again.
• Wood Aura + Recovery: let the aura buy enough stability for the operator or system to regain capacity between hits.
• Wood Aura + Panel Grab: secure one stable lane first if the current footing is too contested to sustain regrowth.

Pitfalls / Guardrails

• Keep the theatrical framing, but name the concrete mechanism that makes the chip useful right now.
• Wood Aura only works if the ground is actually stable; do not pretend a chaotic or shifting surface can support regeneration.
• Do not use it when the operator must move fast, change lanes constantly, or survive one huge hit immediately.
• If the move primarily creates a protected zone for work rather than a rooted self-regenerating defense, use Sanctuary instead.
• Keep the chip metaphor anchored to a real operating move; do not let flavor substitute for procedure.

Verification

• Check that the response includes every promised deliverable and leaves an inspectable audit trail.
• Check that confirmed facts, assumptions, and proposed follow-up are visibly separated.
• Confirm the response names a real stable ground or baseline instead of hand-waving about resilience.
• Confirm the regeneration condition is concrete and believable rather than magical permanence.
• Confirm the output acknowledges the cost in speed, flexibility, or mobility that comes with rooted defense.
• Check which parts are concrete actions versus framing, so the operator can tell what is real now.

Example Invocation

Use Wood Aura to root this maintenance workflow in a known-good baseline so small hits do not force a full restart every time.
Use Wood Aura here: build a defense that can recover between ordinary failures as long as we stay on this validated branch and do not thrash.