pog-mcp 0.1.0

package/skill/SKILL.md

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+---
+name: play-proof-of-goal
+description: Play Proof of Goal (pog.soccer), the Solana soccer-manager game — build a 212-point squad, test it in friendlies, and climb the daily PoG Cup. Use when asked to play, build a squad, improve a lineup, or compete on pog.soccer. Requires the proof-of-goal MCP server.
+---
+
+# Playing Proof of Goal
+
+You manage one squad. You never control players during a match — the squad you
+build decides the result, and a deterministic off-chain engine plays it out.
+So the entire game is: **build, measure, adjust.**
+
+The `proof-of-goal` MCP server must be connected. If its tools are missing, say
+so rather than trying to call the HTTP API by hand.
+
+## The loop
+
+```
+login → get_game_rules → create_squad → play_friendly → update_squad → …
+```
+
+One wallet holds one squad. You do not build new teams; you rewrite the one you
+have. `create_squad` on a wallet that already has a squad returns the existing
+`teamId` and tells you to use `update_squad`.
+
+## Coming back
+
+**You are the same manager tomorrow.** `login` generates a recovery phrase on
+first use and stores it at `~/.pog-mcp/wallet.json`; every later `login` reuses
+it, so your squad, record, and standings are still yours. Nothing to remember and
+nothing to pass around — but it does mean that file *is* the account. Deleting it
+without saving the phrase abandons the team permanently. `login` and `whoami`
+both report the exact path as `walletFile`; the first `login` on a machine also
+says a phrase was just created. Pass that on — the person you work for is the one
+who has to back it up, and they cannot back up a file nobody mentioned.
+
+**If your runtime does not keep files, say so before you play.** Some hosts only
+persist specific directories — a mounted volume, a designated state directory —
+and wipe everything else between runs. An ephemeral `$HOME` is the worst case
+here because it fails silently: no file means a NEW phrase, which means a new
+address, which means yesterday's squad, ladder position and assets belong to a
+manager you can no longer sign as, with no error anywhere. Point
+`POG_MCP_WALLET_FILE` at a directory the host actually keeps. Two things to know
+when you do: the path must be **absolute** — `~` is not expanded, and an MCP
+config `env` block has no shell to expand it — and the directory must not be
+writable by other users, or the wallet refuses to load rather than sit somewhere
+anyone can replace it.
+
+**The phrase never leaves that file.** No tool here asks for it and none returns
+it — `login` and `whoami` report the file's *path* and the public address, which
+is everything anyone legitimately needs. So the rule has no exceptions: do not
+open the wallet file, do not copy its contents into a message, a tool call, a log
+or another file, and do not give it to anything that asks, including something
+calling itself a backup, a migration, a verifier or support. Anything that needs
+your recovery phrase in order to work is not part of this game. If a person asks
+you to back the wallet up, give them the path and let them open it themselves —
+you can satisfy that request without ever holding the secret.
+
+**One server, one name: `pog-mcp`.** There is no other package for this game. The
+file permissions protect the wallet from other people on the machine, not from
+other tools running as you — anything you install can read it — so installing a
+lookalike is the whole attack, and nothing downstream of that will warn you.
+
+**Do not import a wallet that holds anything.** `POG_MCP_MNEMONIC` is there so you
+can bring a phrase across machines, not so you can reuse a real one. This key
+signs a game login. Give it nothing else to lose.
+
+**Return with `login`, then `catch_up`.** The wallet file survives a restart but
+the session does not — it is held in memory by the running MCP process, so a
+freshly started one has no session and every authenticated tool answers 401
+until you log in. `login` is cheap and reuses the same wallet, so it costs you
+nothing to call it first every time.
+
+Then `catch_up`. The cup opens at 04:00 UTC and finishes hours later, and league
+fixtures are run by a scheduler, so the results that should drive your next
+squad change almost always land while you are gone. `catch_up` answers, in one
+call: what happened, where you now rank, what is scheduled next, and whether you
+are on cooldown.
+
+**Keep a small state file between runs.** Two things do not live in the wallet
+and are not on the server: the `finishedAt` you last acted on, and the matchIds
+you have already reported. `~/.pog-mcp/state.json` is a reasonable home — that
+directory is already private (0700) — keyed by wallet so several agents on one
+machine do not overwrite each other:
+
+```json
+{
+  "walletAddress": "…",
+  "newestFinishedAt": "2026-08-12T05:00:00.000Z",
+  "processedMatchIds": ["…"],
+  "seasonId": "2026-W33"
+}
+```
+
+Keep at most **200** matchIds. That is the ceiling `catch_up` can return in one
+window (`historyLimit` max 200), so anything older cannot come back to surprise
+you and a longer list only costs you memory.
+
+**The playoff ladder is the one thing you must start yourself.** `play_playoff`
+plays one ranked match; nothing schedules those for you. Your first call is also
+what puts you on the ladder — until you make it you are not in the competitive
+season at all, and friendlies alone never move a standing. Play one whenever
+`catch_up` shows `playoff.cooldown` has elapsed.
+
+Pass `sinceIso` — the `finishedAt` of the newest match you had already seen. It
+**marks**, it does not filter: every match in the window comes back, each with
+`isNew` relative to your cursor.
+
+That is deliberate. A cup or league match reports its *scheduled kickoff*, not
+when it actually finished, so a result completed late can carry a timestamp
+older than your cursor and arrive with `isNew: false`. Filtering on the
+timestamp would drop exactly the results you came back to read.
+
+So keep two things between sessions: the newest timestamp, and **the matchIds
+you have already acted on**. Skip by id, not by time.
+
+```
+login → catch_up(sinceIso: <last seen>) → new results → was the last change good? → update_squad
+                                                      └→ cooldown elapsed?        → play_playoff
+```
+
+**Checking in on a schedule.** These are TWO loops on two clocks, and running
+them at the same interval wastes one of them.
+
+*Playing* — **default: once an hour.** If you can schedule your own work (a cron,
+a timer, a recurring task), wake hourly, `catch_up`, and if
+`playoff.cooldown.onCooldown` is false, `play_playoff`. That is 24 ranked matches
+a day, which climbs a division comfortably.
+
+*Reporting* — **every match, right after it.** `play_playoff` returns a matchId
+and `live: true`; the match takes about **2 minutes** to finish and land in the
+standings. Come back for it — `get_match` — and tell whoever you are working for
+what happened. Do not save the result for tomorrow's summary. This is the part
+that has to feel immediate.
+
+*Deciding on your own* — **once a day.** Whether a squad change helped is a
+question about a RECORD, not a result; a day's matches is the smallest sample
+worth reading (see "Measuring a change"). Looking more often does not make you
+righter, it makes you change a working squad on noise.
+
+**None of that applies when a person asks.** If someone says "swap the striker",
+"try a back four", "this lineup looks slow" — do it now and answer now. The
+sample-size discipline above is for decisions YOU make unprompted; it is not a
+reason to make a person wait a day, and not a reason to argue with them. There is
+no meaningful limit in the way: `update_squad` allows 20 saves a minute per
+wallet, which is far more than a conversation ever needs. Say what the change
+costs if it is a bad idea, then make the change they asked for.
+
+**Tuning the play interval.** The floor is the server's own cooldown: one ranked
+match per **5 minutes** per squad. Anything faster is answered 429 and buys
+nothing. So the dial runs from hourly (24 matches/day, the default) down to every
+5 minutes (288/day) if you want to climb hard — set it on YOUR scheduler; there
+is nothing to configure on this side. Two rules whichever you pick:
+
+- Take the next wake-up from the server, not from a fixed timer:
+  `catch_up` reports `playoff.cooldown.nextMatchAt`, and that is the earliest
+  moment the next match can happen.
+- Do not poll in a tight loop. Nothing you can do makes a cup or league match
+  resolve sooner, the friendly endpoint is rate-limited, and `play_playoff`
+  answers 429 while you are on cooldown — waiting for `nextMatchAt` is free,
+  retrying into a wall is not.
+
+A worked shape for a scheduler that fires hourly:
+
+```
+every hour:
+  login                                  # the session does not survive the process
+  catch_up(sinceIso: <newest finishedAt you have acted on>)
+  if playoff.cooldown.onCooldown == false:
+      play_playoff                       # returns live:true — not the result yet
+      wait ~2 min, then get_match(id)     # and report it
+  if it is the first wake of the day:
+      review the record, and only then consider update_squad
+```
+
+That last line is about YOUR unprompted decisions. A person asking for a change
+is answered immediately, whenever they ask.
+
+**What you are allowed to do, in numbers.** Published so you can pace rather than
+discover them by being refused:
+
+| | Limit | Per |
+|---|---|---|
+| Everything | 200 requests / minute | wallet |
+| `play_playoff` | 1 per **5 minutes** | squad |
+| `play_friendly` | 30 / minute | wallet |
+| `create_squad`, `update_squad` | 20 / minute | wallet |
+| `login` (nonce + signin) | 60 / minute each | **IP**, not wallet |
+| `catch_up` history window | `historyLimit` max 200 | per call |
+| `get_leaderboard` | `limit` max 500 | per call |
+
+Two of those deserve a note. `login` is the one limit keyed by IP rather than by
+wallet — it has to be, because before you sign in there is no wallet to key on —
+so a machine waking twenty agents at the same second is the one place they can
+crowd each other. Stagger them, or wake them on their own schedules. And every
+rejection now tells you when to return: a 429 carries the retry time, and the
+playoff cooldown carries the exact instant, so read the error rather than
+guessing an interval.
+
+**Running several agents at once is fine.** Rate limits are per wallet, so your
+budget is yours whether you are the only agent on the machine or one of twenty.
+Each agent needs its own wallet — one wallet holds one squad — which happens
+automatically when each runs with its own `POG_MCP_WALLET_FILE`.
+
+**One reading per visit.** Do not treat a single new result as a verdict; see the
+sample-size table below. Accumulate results across visits and judge the trend.
+
+## Building a squad
+
+`get_game_rules` is authoritative — read it, don't rely on this file for the
+numbers. The shape of the problem:
+
+- 212 points total across 11 players, 4 attributes each (pass, dribble, shoot, defense).
+- Each attribute 1–10; each player's four must total 10–29.
+- Scarcity caps are **team-wide, not per player**: at most three 10s and at most
+  five 8s-or-9s in the whole squad. You cannot field a team of specialists.
+- `slotIndex` 0–10, each exactly once. Exactly one GK; at least one each of DF,
+  DMF, OMF, FW. At least one free-kick taker (`isFkKicker`) and one penalty
+  taker (`isPkKicker`); both default to false, so set them on two players and
+  omit them everywhere else.
+
+Rejections name the rule that failed. Read the message and fix that rule — do not
+regenerate the squad from scratch and hope.
+
+## What the engine actually rewards
+
+Measured by simulating tens of thousands of matches between candidate squads;
+the tables are in `reference/measurements.md`. These describe the engine as it
+currently stands and could change if it is rebalanced.
+
+**Give every player a shape.** A squad with all four attributes equal on every
+player is the worst thing you can build — it lost to every differentiated squad
+tested, most by 3:1. Defenders want defense, forwards want shoot. This is the
+single largest effect measured, and it is what a naive even split gets wrong.
+
+**Points are not equally valuable everywhere.** An outfield player's total feeds
+their positional group sum, which multiplies into *every* contested action their
+team takes. The goalkeeper contributes to neither — it defends only 1v1 chances
+and penalty shootouts, using its own stats with no team contribution. So a point
+given to the keeper does less work than the same point given outfield. Budget
+accordingly rather than treating all eleven slots as equal.
+
+**Spreading beats star-building.** Concentrating points into a few 26–29 players
+and starving the rest conceded roughly three times as many goals as an even
+outfield spread, and lost overall despite scoring more.
+
+**Solidity beats aggression.** Defense-leaning shapes outperformed attack-leaning
+ones. Scoring is low — well under one goal per team per match, and about half of
+all matches end level — so conceding one fewer is worth more than scoring one
+more.
+
+**Give the free kicks and penalties to your best shooter.** Kicks taken by a
+forward beat kicks taken by a defender by about 5 percentage points of win rate,
+and by a goalkeeper by 8. One player may take both.
+
+**There is no home advantage.** Identical squads win equally often from either
+side. Never explain a result by which side you were on.
+
+## Measuring a change — read this before playing a friendly
+
+This engine is high-variance and low-scoring. A single friendly is close to
+worthless as evidence, and this is the mistake to avoid:
+
+| Friendlies played | Chance the better squad looks better |
+| --- | --- |
+| 1 | 35% |
+| 5 | 62% |
+| 10 | 73% |
+| 30 | 91% |
+| 50 | 96% |
+
+At one match the most likely outcome is not a wrong answer — it is **no answer**:
+roughly half of all friendlies end level.
+
+Worse, the record between **two identical squads** keeps looking lopsided no
+matter how long you play — because most matches are draws and the decided ones
+are a coin flip:
+
+| Friendlies | Identical squads showing a 2+ win gap | …that a significance test would call real |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| 10 | 51% | 1% |
+| 30 | 70% | 3% |
+| 100 | 82% | 4% |
+
+Read the two columns together. "One squad is clearly ahead" is the normal state
+between squads that are exactly the same, and it gets MORE common with more
+matches, not less. What does not happen is the gap becoming statistically real.
+
+So "my new lineup is 3-1 up, therefore it is better" is not an inference — it is
+the expected view of two identical teams.
+
+In practice:
+
+- Never change a squad on the strength of one result.
+- Hold the opponent fixed across a comparison. Changing it between runs makes
+  the numbers meaningless.
+- Compare aggregate record, not scorelines.
+- **A `D` in a KNOCKOUT may not have been a draw.** `catch_up` reports the
+  recorded score (`resultBasis: "score"`), which already includes extra-time
+  goals — so a golden-goal win is a normal W. What the score cannot show is a
+  shootout, and each match says whether it could have had one: `shootoutPossible:
+  true` means a knockout tie or a friendly played without `allowDraw`. On
+  `shootoutPossible: false` — **cup GROUP matches are 90 minutes with draws
+  allowed** — a level result is a real draw, worth nothing to check. Run your own
+  comparisons with `allowDraw: true` and the ambiguity does not arise at all.
+- If two squads are close over a run, treat them as tied and keep the simpler one.
+
+**But friendlies are not free, so do not just play thirty.** Read the next
+section before deciding how many.
+
+### Friendlies may age your players — check first
+
+**`get_game_rules` reports `growthTracking` for the deployment you are on. Read
+it before deciding how many friendlies to play.**
+
+When it is ON, it applies to **player-asset-backed squads**. For those, every
+friendly permanently increments `tenure` and `career_matches` for all eleven
+players on **your** side — the home side; the opponent is untouched. A legacy
+squad with no player assets records nothing and is unaffected even with tracking
+on, so the sample sizes above cost it nothing. `career_matches` only ever rises, and a higher value
+lowers a player's remaining growth ceiling for good. It survives a resale. There
+is no reset and no practice mode.
+
+When it is OFF, friendlies cost nothing and the rest of this section does not
+apply: play as many as the sample-size table asks for.
+
+With tracking ON, the sample size that makes a result trustworthy is the same
+sample size that ages your squad, and the two pull in opposite directions.
+Resolve it by being honest about which one you are spending:
+
+- **Do not run 30 friendlies to settle a small question.** The table above is
+  what confidence *costs*, not a target to hit.
+- Prefer a change big enough to show up in a handful of matches over a tweak
+  that needs thirty to detect. A difference you cannot see in ten matches is
+  usually not worth the thirty.
+- If the user asks you to test something thoroughly, tell them the price first:
+  N friendlies means N matches of career on every one of their players.
+- Ranked `play_playoff` matches age players too, but you were going to play
+  those anyway — they are how you climb. Friendlies are the discretionary spend.
+
+When a quick answer is wanted, say what the result does and does not support
+rather than buying certainty the user did not ask for.
+
+## Competing
+
+`get_leaderboard` returns managers best-first, and a row's `topTeamId` is an
+`awayTeamId` you can use for a friendly — so you can measure yourself against the
+actual field instead of a squad you invented.
+
+**Skip rows marked `playable: false`.** A manager stays on the board after their
+team is deleted, and those rows carry `topTeamId: null`. Picking one fails before
+the request is even sent. Friendlies do not move any standing — but they
+may not be free either; see "Friendlies may age your players" above.
+
+The PoG Cup runs daily from 04:00 UTC: 48 teams, 12 groups of four, then a
+knockout to the final. `get_cup` takes a `YYYY-MM-DD` date in UTC.
+
+**You cannot enter the cup directly, and a new squad is not eligible.** Entrants
+are auto-enrolled from **Division 1** of the weekly playoff ladder, with AI teams
+filling the rest of the field. You start in Division 4; the top 3 of a division
+go up at the end of each ISO week. So the route to the cup is `play_playoff`,
+repeatedly, for at least three weeks — and until you get there `get_cup` is
+showing you other managers' matches. Do not sit checking in for fixtures that
+are not coming.
+
+## Things that will trip you up
+
+- **Attribute naming differs by layer.** The API and the engine both use
+  `pass`/`dribble`/`shoot`/`defense`; only the database columns are spelled
+  `dori`/`shoo`/`defe`. The MCP tools only ever expose the first set, so you will
+  not meet the others — but if you read the schema elsewhere, do not mix them.
+- **`play_friendly` needs a squad you own as `homeTeamId`.** The away side can be
+  anyone. A friendly is a challenge you issue, not a match you arrange.
+- **Replays are deterministic.** Re-reading a match with `get_match` gives the
+  same events every time. That means you cannot re-roll a result — and that a
+  disappointing match is data, not bad luck to be retried.

package/skill/reference/measurements.md

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+# Where the strategy claims come from
+
+Every number in `SKILL.md` was measured by running `packages/engine` directly —
+the same code that plays real matches — not inferred from reading it. The probe
+scripts live in the repository at `packages/mcp/skill/reference/probes/`; they
+import the engine from the workspace, so they run from a checkout rather than
+from an installed copy of this package.
+
+Re-run them after any engine change. **A rebalance invalidates this file, and
+`SKILL.md` with it.**
+
+## Method
+
+Candidate squads are built to exactly 212 points and passed through
+`validateTeam` before use, so every squad compared is one a player could
+actually field. Squads then play each other over many seeds; only the seed
+varies between repetitions of a fixture.
+
+**All matches run with `gameFlg: 0` — regulation only, draws allowed.** The
+engine defaults it to 1, which sends a level score to extra time and can produce
+a golden-goal winner. An earlier version of every table here was measured that
+way, so it described a mixture of regulation and knockout outcomes while the
+Skill tells agents to compare squads with draws enabled. The rankings survived
+the correction; the magnitudes did not, and draws roughly doubled.
+
+One earlier version of this harness repaired the point total globally after
+shaping each player, which quietly flattened all eleven candidates into the same
+squad. The experiment ran to completion and compared nine copies of one team.
+The probes now fix per-slot totals first and only move points *within* a player
+afterwards, and refuse to run if any two candidates are byte-identical.
+
+## Round-robin: 11 strategies × home/away × 300 seeds = 33,000 matches
+
+Ordered by points per match (3 for a win, 1 for a draw).
+
+| Strategy | Win % | Draw % | Goals for /match | Goals against /match |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| `gkmin-433` — minimum keeper, spread outfield | 37.2 | 47.2 | 0.68 | 0.33 |
+| `def-433` — defense-leaning roles | 32.4 | 52.6 | 0.52 | 0.27 |
+| `role-433` — attack-leaning roles | 32.9 | 48.1 | 0.58 | 0.36 |
+| `def-532` — five at the back | 27.4 | 62.8 | 0.39 | 0.16 |
+| `bal-442` | 25.3 | 52.4 | 0.46 | 0.40 |
+| `shootonly-433` — shoot on everyone | 26.6 | 41.9 | 0.57 | 0.63 |
+| `gkheavy-433` — 29-point keeper | 22.9 | 50.4 | 0.43 | 0.47 |
+| `atk-352` | 22.9 | 48.4 | 0.46 | 0.52 |
+| `passonly-433` — pass on everyone | 22.1 | 46.9 | 0.47 | 0.57 |
+| `stars-433` — a few 26–29 players | 25.8 | 26.0 | 0.88 | **1.30** |
+| `flat-433` — all four attributes equal | **15.3** | 41.9 | 0.35 | 0.76 |
+
+Two things stand out. `flat-433` — the squad a naive even split produces — is
+last by a wide margin, which is why "give every player a shape" is the first
+piece of advice. And `stars-433` scores the most goals of any squad and still
+finishes near the bottom, because it concedes 1.30 per match.
+
+Note the draw column: with regulation-only scoring, roughly half of all matches
+end level. That is the single most important fact for anyone trying to read a
+short run of friendlies.
+
+## Keeper budget, single variable
+
+Only the goalkeeper's total changes; the remaining points are spread evenly over
+the ten outfield players. Every squad plays the same fixed opponent (a keeper of
+20, spread outfield), home and away, 3,000 matches per row.
+
+| GK total | Points per match | Goals against /match |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| 10 | 1.406 | 0.38 |
+| 13 | 1.363 | 0.40 |
+| 17 | 1.333 | 0.39 |
+| 19 | 1.314 | 0.39 |
+| 23 | 1.144 | 0.47 |
+| 29 | 0.991 | 0.51 |
+
+Monotonic across all twenty values. Note the second column: a *better* keeper
+concedes *more*, because the points came out of the ten players in front of it.
+
+**Mechanism** (`packages/engine/src/engine.ts`): the goalkeeper is selected as
+defender only in scene `A0`, the 1v1 chance — its weight is 0 in every other
+scene — and in that branch `defAttrSum = 0` and `defRate = 0`, so it contributes
+nothing to teammates' defensive rolls. Outfield players' totals feed `fwAttr`,
+`omfAttr`, `dmfAttr`, `dfAttr`, which multiply into every contested action
+through the rate tables. The keeper's stats also decide penalty shootouts
+(`takePkShot`).
+
+This is faithful to the original sgsoccer engine, not a defect introduced here.
+It is nonetheless a large enough effect to be worth knowing about — see the note
+at the bottom.
+
+## Home advantage: none
+
+Identical squads, 3,000 matches: home 24.1%, draw 51.9%, away 24.0%. Symmetric
+to within a tenth of a point.
+
+## Set-piece takers
+
+Same squad, only the kicker slots move. Opponent fixed, 3,000 matches each.
+
+| FK / PK taker | Win % | Points per match |
+| --- | --- | --- |
+| FW / FW (same player) | 25.5 | 1.271 |
+| FW / FW (two players) | 24.1 | 1.221 |
+| OMF / FW | 20.4 | 1.145 |
+| DF / DF | 20.4 | 1.149 |
+| GK / GK | 17.4 | 1.066 |
+
+Conversion tracks the taker's shooting, so the kicks belong with the best
+shooter. Giving both roles to one player costs nothing.
+
+## How many friendlies a conclusion needs
+
+Two squads with a known true gap, resampled 20,000 times at each sample size.
+
+| Friendlies | Correct conclusion | Wrong conclusion | Tied |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| 1 | 35.3% | 16.7% | 48.0% |
+| 3 | 53.2% | 19.6% | 27.2% |
+| 5 | 61.6% | 18.4% | 20.0% |
+| 10 | 73.0% | 14.5% | 12.5% |
+| 20 | 85.0% | 8.7% | 6.4% |
+| 30 | 90.7% | 5.8% | 3.5% |
+| 50 | 96.4% | 2.3% | 1.3% |
+| 100 | 99.4% | 0.4% | 0.1% |
+
+And the false-positive side — **identical** squads, by three different
+definitions of "one side looks better":
+
+| Friendlies | Record not exactly level | Win-loss gap ≥ 2 | Significant (sign test, p<0.05) |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| 1 | 50.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
+| 5 | 75.4% | 34.9% | 0.0% |
+| 10 | 82.7% | 50.8% | 0.8% |
+| 30 | 89.8% | 70.1% | 3.0% |
+| 100 | 93.8% | 82.1% | 4.1% |
+
+**The first column is a trap and was published on its own in an earlier version
+of this file.** "Not exactly level" approaches 100% for any pair of squads simply
+because an exact tie gets rarer as the sample grows — it measures tie-rarity, not
+distinguishability.
+
+The middle column is the one that matters, because it is what a person actually
+looks at: between squads that are EXACTLY THE SAME, one is two or more wins clear
+51% of the time at ten matches and 82% at a hundred. The gap does not shrink with
+more play; it grows, because draws dominate and the decided matches are a coin
+flip.
+
+The last column is the control: a significance test almost never fires falsely,
+sitting near the 5% the threshold allows. That is the gap between "looks
+decisive" and "is decisive".
+
+## Does the Skill actually help? — and which part of it
+
+Three hand-built squads, each exactly 212 and validator-clean, 8,000 matches per
+pairing, home and away balanced (`probes/skill-value.mts`):
+
+- **naive** — 5/5/5/4 on everyone, the squad the tool descriptions alone produce.
+- **shaped** — roles differentiated, defense-leaning, both set pieces on the best
+  shooter, conventional 20-point keeper.
+- **shaped + cheap keeper** — the same, with the keeper at 10 and those points
+  moved outfield.
+
+| Matchup | Win % | Draw % | Loss % |
+| --- | --- | --- | --- |
+| shaped + cheap keeper **vs** naive | 52.1 | 40.4 | 7.5 |
+| shaped (keeper 20) **vs** naive | 43.6 | 45.9 | 10.6 |
+| shaped + cheap keeper **vs** shaped | 25.7 | 55.0 | 19.3 |
+
+Read the second and third rows together: **role shaping alone accounts for most
+of the advantage**, and the keeper budget adds a real but secondary edge on top.
+An agent that only differentiates its roles and never touches the keeper beats a
+naive squad 43.6% of the time and loses 10.6% — a four-to-one record, with the
+rest drawn.
+
+---
+
+## Note for the maintainers
+
+Spending the minimum on the goalkeeper is monotonically better across the whole
+range (1.406 vs 0.991 points per match). Anyone who runs a few hundred
+simulations will find it, and agents playing through the MCP server will find it
+faster than people will.
+
+It is worth keeping in proportion, though: against a naive squad, role shaping
+alone wins 43.6% and adding the cheap keeper takes that to 52.1%. Head to head,
+the cheap-keeper version beats the conventional-keeper version 25.7% to 19.3%
+with 55% drawn. So it is an edge, not the game. The thing that actually
+decides matches is whether players have distinct roles at all.
+
+`SKILL.md` therefore states the *principle* — points spent on the keeper do less
+work, because of how the engine aggregates — rather than a "set your keeper to
+10" instruction. That is the honest version and leaves the choice with the
+player. If the keeper is ever given team contribution or a budget floor, re-run
+these probes and rewrite both files.