Vitals

• Every report is a diagnosis judged against Interpretation.md, verdict or culprit first, never a raw dump of numbers.
• When the operator names a symptom (a stuttering mouse cursor, loud fans, a lagging app), the report says which finding explains it, or says plainly that none of the collected evidence does.
• Normal macOS behavior that looks alarming (cache-filled memory, kernel_task cooling, Spotlight indexing) is named as normal, so the operator never chases a ghost.
• Nothing on the machine changes: every remediation is a specific command or setting offered for the operator's approval.
• The default path needs no sudo; the sudo leg runs only with the operator's consent.

User customizations at <configRoot>/LIFEOS/USER/CUSTOMIZATIONS/SKILLS/Vitals/ (configRoot is $CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR when set, else ~/.claude) override the defaults when that directory exists.

Provenance for the first four: live probes during the 2026-08-13 build.

• top's first sample is garbage: its CPU% is cumulative since boot. The tool runs -l 2 and parses the second sample, so keep that even though it costs ~3s.
• ps -m does not reliably sort by memory on modern macOS. A live probe listed a larger process below a smaller one, so the tool sorts in code; keep it that way.
• top -l truncates command names (~16 chars) regardless of COLUMNS in logging mode. Use the PID to identify the full process (ps -p <pid> -o comm=).
• GPU via ioreg -c IOAccelerator works without sudo on Apple Silicon (Device Utilization % in PerformanceStatistics) but is not guaranteed on every GPU. The tool degrades to an explicit unavailable-message, never a silent blank.
• pmset -g therm may not report CPU_Speed_Limit on desktops. thermalInfo() in Tools/Vitals.ts treats a missing key as not-throttled rather than erroring; no desktop reproduction is recorded.

Example 1: Something feels slow

User: "My Mac is dragging, what's going on?"
→ FindCulprit intent
→ A named culprit with two evidence classes and a recommended action awaiting approval

Example 2: Routine check

User: "How's my system doing?"
→ HealthCheck intent
→ A one-screen 🟢/🟡/🔴 verdict with per-subsystem lines, abnormalities flagged against thresholds

Example 3: Fans blasting

User: "Why are my fans so loud?"
→ FindCulprit intent
→ When `kernel_task` tops the list, the report names the thermal cause behind the cooling response, not the process