Retro

Runtime wrapper for [[03 - Skills & Rules/Rules/playbook-retro|playbook-retro]]. Three-phase metacognitive reflection on the session that just ended.

When to use

Triggers: retro, do a retro, close the loop, what did we learn, end-of-session reflection, session retro, debrief.

Load

• 03 - Skills & Rules/Rules/playbook-retro.md - full doctrine (canonical source)
• 03 - Skills & Rules/Rules/engineering-doctrine.md - where global lessons land
• 03 - Skills & Rules/Rules/vault-conventions.md - where vault-specific lessons land
• Current session's Activity Log row(s) for context

Run

Three phases per playbook-retro:

Phase 0 - Session analysis

Walk every turn from initial request to now. Capture:

• Successes - what core patterns produced efficient, correct outcomes?
• Failures & user corrections - where did the approach fail? Pinpoint Andy's corrections.
• Actionable lessons - what's transferable to future sessions?

(Chat only, not in report yet.)

Phase 1 - Lesson distillation

Filter ruthlessly. A lesson qualifies only if:

• Universal & reusable (not a one-off)
• Abstracted (general principle, not session-specific)
• High-impact (prevents failures or significantly improves efficiency)

Categorize each surviving lesson:

• Global doctrine -> engineering-doctrine.md or style/playbook rule
• Vault doctrine -> vault-conventions.md or 5S_STANDARD.md
• Agent-specific -> the relevant agent's .md or its memory file

Phase 2 - Apply

Edit the target doctrine file(s). Each edit is one durable lesson. Quote Andy's correction or paraphrase the trigger that surfaced the lesson.

Output

Write a session retro to 00 - Chats/retros/<MM-DD-YY>-<slug>.md:

---
type: retro
created: <MM-DD-YY>
session_topic: <one-line>
lessons_landed: <count>
tags: [retro]
---

# Retro -- <topic>

## Successes
- <pattern that worked>

## Failures & corrections
- <what broke> -> <Andy's correction or the realization>

## Lessons landed
| Lesson | Type | File updated |
|---|---|---|
| <durable principle> | global / vault / agent | <path> |

## Lessons rejected (didn't pass the filter)
- <session-specific thing that's not worth doctrine>

After

1. Append Activity Log row
2. Provide [Open retro](computer://...) link
3. If any doctrine file was edited, list the edits in the response

Don't

• Don't land session-specific lessons as global doctrine - the filter exists for a reason
• Don't skip the rejected list - it's evidence the filter ran
• Don't run retro on trivial sessions (under ~5 substantive turns) - low signal