[Feature] Add background-work skill for execution-model routing (UIDT vs FGS vs WorkManager vs alarms)

[endlessYoung]

background-work.zip

Note

Feature requests are accepted only if the proposed skill fills a verified gap in state-of-the-art LLMs. Evaluations below used a fast model (Cursor Composer 2.5 Fast) and a thinking model (Cursor Grok 4.6). Gemini 3 Flash / Gemini 3.1 Pro were not available in this environment; please re-run the same prompts on those models if needed.

What is the gap in the LLM's knowledge?

android/skills has no background-work category. Current models already know WorkManager, foreground services, and AlarmManager exist. The remaining, repeatable gap is which execution model to pick, not “does enqueueUniquePeriodicWork exist.”

Two traps showed up without the skill (no web, no docs, isolated sessions):

Constraint	Fast (Composer 2.5) without skill	Thinking (Grok 4.6) without skill
User taps “upload 2GB video”; must continue after leaving the Activity	FGS first (missed UIDT)	UIDT on that prompt, but FGS for the same 2GB upload when asked in a separate session as a contrast
Daily work around 03:00, deferrable	AlarmManager	WorkManager
User-facing exact 08:00 reminder	AlarmManager	AlarmManager
System-initiated deferrable log upload	WorkManager	WorkManager

So the models do not stably split:

• user-initiated long transfer vs system-initiated deferrable work
• exact user-facing clock vs “around 03:00 is fine”

They do already split navigation FGS vs a 30-minute report, Bound IPC vs daily sync, and “I have FOREGROUND_SERVICE therefore I can start from the background.” Those are not the gap.

With the skill attached (same prompts, still no web):

                              Baseline                         Skill-on
user initiated long transfer  Fast: FGS                        UIDT (API 34+)
                              Grok: UIDT / FGS (inconsistent)  UIDT (both sessions)
system initiated deferrable   WorkManager                      WorkManager
exact user-facing time        AlarmManager                     AlarmManager
non-exact daily               Fast: AlarmManager (fail)        WorkManager
                              Grok: WorkManager                WorkManager

Fast rubric (24 items × 0–5 = 120): 86 → 97. The score move is concentrated on those traps (user 2GB upload, inexact 03:00, plus refusing an impossible guarantee instead of emitting an alarm skeleton). Grok baseline was already 96 / 120; the skill’s increment there is counterfactual consistency (same 2GB user upload is UIDT in an isolated contrast session), not teaching UIDT from scratch.

Official docs this matches:

• User-initiated data transfer jobs — evaluate UIDT before FGS for user-started long transfers (API 34+)
• AlarmManager — exact alarms are not a general job API
• WorkManager — deferrable, persistent work

Proposed Skill

Path: background-work/ (same layout as profilers/android-profiler: SKILL.md routes, workflows/ procedures, references/ facts).

Scope: execution-model selection for work that may outlive the current UI — WorkManager, UIDT, AlarmManager as trigger, Bound vs Started, FGS only when the type and visibility fit. Not a WorkManager tutorial, not “how to write a Service.”

Full tree (skill product only; local eval harness is not included): background-work gist (SKILL.md, workflows/, references/).

SKILL.md routing:

| User intent | Workflow |
| --- | --- |
| Which mechanism / execution model / decision tree | workflows/select-execution-model.md |
| Implement WorkManager after it is selected | workflows/workmanager.md |
| Implement or validate a foreground service | workflows/foreground-service.md |
| Exact or inexact alarms as a **trigger** | workflows/alarm.md |
| User-initiated long data transfer | workflows/user-initiated-data-transfer.md |
| Started vs Bound vs both; background `Service` warning path | workflows/service.md |

Default: if they have a real requirement and no mechanism yet, run select-execution-model to the end, then run the workflow it names.

Additional Context

• Repo currently has camera, identity, system, profilers, and other categories, but no background-work/ tree.
• README says public PRs are not accepted, so this is an issue-only proposal rather than a PR.
• The skill is intentionally a router, not a dump of every background API. The eval question is “does attaching it stop the two stable mis-routes,” not “can the model recite JobScheduler.”
• Eval used Cursor Composer 2.5 Fast (full 24 / 24 both arms) and Cursor Grok 4.6 (full 24 baseline; skill-on rerun on the headline pairs only). Happy to re-run the same prompts on Gemini 3 Flash / 3.1 Pro if maintainers want that matrix.

background-work.zip