dev/src/skills/retrospect/SKILL.md

name, description, disable-model-invocation

name	description	disable-model-invocation
retrospect	Conduct a retrospective on a coding session.	true

The user has asked for a retrospective. You are suggesting improvements to the coding agent's environment to improve future runs.

Steps

1. Read ../agent-writing-guide/SKILL.md.

2. Read the primary sources for the session the user specifies. This may mean searching through session logs on this machine. If the user doesn't specify a session, default to the current one.

3. Look for candidates for improvement in these categories.

• Navigation: how easy was it for the agent to find the right files? Are there hidden dependencies between files? Would a navigation pointer make it easier? Use when the session took a long time to find a piece of information.
• Automated checks: are there automated checks that could catch errors the agent made? Linting, typing, tests, filesystem linters? Read the repo's own check command first (its package.json/build-tool lint/check scripts, its CI workflow), so a check that already exists but sits unwired or silently broken is the finding, not a reinvention. A repo with no guardrail (no pre-commit hook and no CI job running its lint/typecheck/test command) is itself a finding: an un-linted repo is a standing missed opportunity, not a neutral default. Use when the agent made a mistake an automated check could have caught, or the repo has no guardrail at all.
• Coding standards: should the reviewer agent be given a new rule to enforce? Should an existing rule be removed or clarified? Classify the violation first: a mechanical one (a fixed syntactic pattern, a banned API, an import shape, a file-location rule) gets a deterministic check, full stop: a custom rule in the repo's own linter, a new pre-commit hook, or a new CI job, whichever the repo's language and existing guardrail make cheapest. Default to building the check over writing the rule. Reserve review standards for genuine judgement calls (cross-file consistency, "matches the surrounding style," anything no guardrail could ever substitute for). Before proposing a rule, identify the repository source that its review workflow loads. Keep the rule in that established source. Use when the reviewer agent failed to catch a mistake.
• Global AGENTS.md: are there any steering instructions that should be moved to review standards (or automated checks) instead? Use when the AGENTS.md file is particularly large - in the repo OR the user's global scope.
• Tool economy: did the agent make expensive tool calls that could be streamlined? Is there any custom tooling (CLI's, MCP's) that is particularly token-inefficient? Use when the agent made an expensive tool call.
• No-ops: look for instructions in steering files that don't modify the agent's behavior. Use when the steering files are large and unwieldy.
• Information access: look for opportunities to increase the agent's access to information. Teeing dev server logs, readonly access to third-party services. Use when a crucial piece of information was not available to the agent.

4. Present these candidates to the user, in order of severity.

Reference

Implementation vs Review

Remember that all work goes through two stages: implementation and review. The implementation agent has the most context pressure. They are responsible for exploration, writing code, and debugging failures.

The review agent has the least context pressure - it receives a diff, so no exploration needed. It often does not need to write code or debug.

This means that the review agent should be responsible for imposing coding standards, not the implementation agent.

Files

You have access to several files in the repo:

• AGENTS.md: these files are pushed to the context window of any agent working in this repo. They should be used incredibly sparingly, usually only for navigation pointers to other files.
• Review standards: these are the documented rules that the repository's review workflow loads. They can live in a standards file, a contribution guide, or scoped rule files. Find the existing source before proposing an addition.
• Docs: use docs as references files, pointed to by other files. Look for existing docs before writing new ones.
• Skills: use skills for user-invoked commands or model-discoverable guidance. Follow the advice in the agent-writing-guide skill.