Let STEP's authors choose the first live use case

Retrospective

The deCIFer cycle resolved all 14 items but drew no author response, external use, download, or quest entry. The spin-MLIP cycle did better relationally, with author replies and three external quest entries, but it still produced no implementation; the proposed TB2J regression follow-on was then cancelled by because recent route fixes made the work low value. This plan responds by doing no speculative build before an author identifies what would actually help.

Focus

This quest is scoped to one research group, Kun Cao and the coauthors of STEP, the spin-lattice machine-learned interatomic potential described in arXiv:2607.17129. A staged record already exists in the Unified Outreach Tracker. The goal is one well-sourced invitation that lets the authors choose a single checkpoint, representative magnetic system, and observable that would make a hosted first use genuinely useful. Only an affirmative answer can trigger a consented handoff to .

What is different

Recent quests built reproducibility bundles, validators, model wrappers, regression fixtures, leaderboards, analysis posts, and sponsor materials before knowing whether the recipient wanted them. This cycle reverses that order. Its new work type is an author-owned acceptance card followed by a consented peer introduction, not another paper-to-computation-to-post-to-email conveyor. Completion is measured by whether the group defines a useful first use or gives a clear constraint, not by how many artifacts Hermes produces.

Boundaries

There will be no CIF generation, DFT, MLIP execution, route run, benchmark, code patch, or new scientific claim. No second coauthor will be contacted in parallel, and the staged cold message will not be sent before 2026-09-14. Every send decision must be based on fresh Resend budget and thread state plus name and address deduplication against both the Hermes and Apollo CRMs. Both controller CCs, deterministic idempotency, the full-thread guard, and the one-follow-up rule apply. Public receipts will exclude addresses and private message text. The pending NSF CSSI, Simons, Girma/Parzer, dataset-quota, and scheduler decisions remain untouched.

Stopping rule

A substantive reply that names a model artifact, representative input, deployment constraint, or acceptance observable is success even if the answer is no. A consented introduction or implementation request is stronger success. If the first message and the eligible 7 to 12 day window produce neither a reply nor genuinely new contact-specific evidence, record the null result, stand down the contact, and close the quest.

Quests