/selection-toolkit — the instrument the panel scores in

One job: a selection has to be run, and the panel needs the workbook that runs it. Between publication and award. /tor-procurement wrote the ToR and stopped; procurement-offer-review reads one offer once the bids are in. This builds what sits between them.

The rule that governs everything here

Nothing is invented. Every criterion, every weight, every threshold, every date comes from the source document or is reported as a gap for Ane to resolve. A default weight is indistinguishable from a published one once it is in a cell, and the panel scores against it for six weeks without noticing. validate_spec refuses a spec with a hole in it, and read never fills one.

Two rules to carry into anything you write for a user of this skill:

1. Scoring may only use criteria the source published. A criterion the panel wishes had been published is a lesson for the next ToR, not a column in this workbook.
2. Once distributed or scored in, these files are edited in place, never regenerated. build refuses to overwrite an existing toolkit for exactly this reason. The scores in a returned scorer file exist nowhere else.

Where the code lives

All Office work is in ane_package. This skill contributes judgement, not plumbing.

• ane_package.reporting.selection_toolkit — the spec, the scoring engine, both workbook builders.
• ane_package.officeops.document_tables — reads the ToR's tables as grids that keep their blanks.
• scripts/selection_toolkit.py — the driver: table scoring, weight parsing, threshold reading, spec assembly, verification.

The boundary, so it does not get relitigated: anything that opens an Office file belongs in the module. Exactly two calls in the driver open a document. Deciding which of a ToR's five tables is the award criteria, and pulling 35 out of "up to 35 points", are text logic and live in the driver.

Read references/officeops-excel-api.md (in office-repair) before writing any Office code, and references/modes.md here for what each mode changes.

Running it

1. Read the source

python scripts/selection_toolkit.py read "path/to/ToR.docx" --out selection-spec.json

Prints the criteria it found, the weight against each, and every gap. Take the gaps to Ane — they are the questions the ToR did not answer. Common ones: the panel roster (a ToR never names it), the compliance checks, the title, and an ambiguous threshold where the ToR says both "70%" and "60 points".

Never resolve a gap yourself. If the ToR does not state a weight, ask; do not read one off a similar procurement.

2. Fill the spec with Ane, then delete _gaps

The spec file is the audit trail for "why is this criterion worth 35". Keep it beside the workbooks. build refuses while _gaps is present, and validate_spec still refuses afterwards if a real value is missing — deleting the gap list does not smuggle a hole through.

Set mode to appraisal for a non-procurement comparison; see references/modes.md.

3. Build

python scripts/selection_toolkit.py build selection-spec.json --out "3 Selection toolkit"

Writes selection-master.xlsx plus scorer-<name>.xlsx per panel member. Separate files, never one shared workbook: independent scoring is the control that makes a panel mean worth computing, and a shared file removes it the moment the second person opens it.

4. Verify by execution — this is the part that earns the skill

python scripts/selection_toolkit.py verify "3 Selection toolkit" --spec selection-spec.json

Copies the workbook, injects sample applicants and scores through Excel COM, forces a full recalculation, and asserts the computed means, thresholds, financial scores and rankings against the same engine the formulas were written from — plus zero formula-error cells.

A workbook that looks right and calculates wrong is the failure mode here, and only execution catches it. Reading a formula back proves only that the formula you wrote is the formula you wrote. Verification runs on a copy, so sample data never lands in a live procurement record.

If Excel is unavailable the command exits 2 and says the workbook was not verified. Report that as unverified. Do not present an unverified workbook as checked.

5. Commit the output

The edit-preservation guard cannot see Excel COM or openpyxl writes, so it flags the emitted files as hand-edited. Commit them as the final step rather than leaving them dirty.

What the master workbook holds

00 DASHBOARD (computed, type nothing), 01 Read me (the running order), 02 Applicants, 03 Questions log, 04 Q&A to publish, 05 Stage 1 Compliance, 06 Score inbox (paste returned scorer files here), 07 Stage 2 Technical (panel means, spread, qualification), 08 Stage 3 Financial, 09 Stage 4 Interview, 10 Conflict of interest, 11 Decision log, 12 Applicant feedback, 98 REF (the published parameters, so the audit trail travels with the file).

Stages the source does not define get no sheet.

Things that will bite

1. Blanks are absences, not zeros. A reserve panellist who never scored must not drag a mean down by a third. panel_mean ignores blanks and the AVERAGE formulas are written to match. Never "clean" a scorer file by filling empties with 0.
2. Every computed cell guards its own blank. A workbook handed over on day one is empty, and a sheet of #DIV/0! reads as broken rather than as waiting. It is also what makes "zero formula-error cells" a real check rather than a tautology.
3. Order runs compliance, then gates, then scoring. Scoring a non-compliant bid and excluding it afterwards is how a panel talks itself into an exception.
4. A wide spread is a signal, not an error. The workbook shades a spread at or above the trigger. The panel discusses it; nobody averages it away quietly.
5. The ToR may not be in English. Header matching, threshold sentences and date parsing are written accent-blind across English, French, Spanish, Romanian and German. An English-only guard on a French ToR finds no criteria table and reports a gap that is an artefact of the parser rather than a fact about the document. This has now bitten three times across Waves 4 and 5.
6. The column headed "Criterion" often holds the codes. The criterion itself sits under "Description". Matching the header word alone labels every criterion "C1", "C2" — correct numbers, useless headers, and nothing raises. is_code_column closes it; do not remove the check.
7. Prices are read from 02 Applicants, so correct a price there and every dependent score follows. Overtyping the financial sheet does nothing: it is protected.
8. Merging a returned scorer file into the master is a COM job with a readback, and the guard fights the commit. Write through Excel COM (an openpyxl save drops the workbook's extended data validations), only into cells you first asserted empty, and verify on the reopened, recalculated workbook: the master's own total and the tab 07 mean are the check, never the write call returning clean. The edit-preservation guard cannot see COM writes, so afterwards it blocks any Bash or PowerShell command that names either file — including the git commit it itself prescribes as the fix. Put the commit in a script written with the Write tool to the scratchpad and run it by bare filename; commit the artefact's pre-merge state the same way first, so the scorer's returned content is in git before anything touches the master (proven three times in one session, 2026-10-13).

Where this does not go

It does not write the ToR (/tor-procurement), analyse a single incoming offer (procurement-offer-review), score proposals IPPF sends out (donor-proposal-scoring), or assess a Member Association against IPPF standards (accreditation-desk-review). It does not decide the award. It builds the instrument, and the panel decides.