imMamdouhaboammarimMamdouhaboammar/matts-skills-into-chatgpt/skills/retro/SKILL.md

retro

Skill8 starsChanged 2 months agoMITView on GitHub

Conduct a retrospective on a coding session to systematically improve agent environment, navigation pointers, automated checks, coding standards, tool economy, or AGENTS.md instructions. Use when reflecting on completed work, auditing agent mistakes, or optimizing repository rules — even if the user says \"run a retro\". Do NOT use during active mid-task implementation.

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

1 rule. 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

0
Common
Most of the 169 edited versions we read keep these.
1
Distinctive
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
0
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

Common
Distinctive
Very specific

Distinctive:
Action: Read the transcript logs of the specified session (or current session) and identify friction points, wrong turns, and repeated …
line 59

“Common” is measured: kept by at least 6 in 10 of the 169 edited versions of this file we could read. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.

Files

SKILL.md

Retro

Conduct systematic, evidence-grounded retrospectives on past agent coding sessions to improve repository navigation pointers, automated lint/type checks, reviewer standards, and instruction ergonomics.

Core Invariants

Context Pressure Separation: Differentiate implementation agents (high context pressure; need minimal steering and navigation pointers) from review agents (low context pressure; enforce deep coding standards).
Push Rules Down the Pyramid: Whenever possible, convert instructions into automated compiler/linter checks $\rightarrow$ reviewer rules $\rightarrow$ documentation $\rightarrow$ only as a last resort AGENTS.md.
No-Op Instruction Pruning: Actively audit and eliminate non-operational or redundant instructions from AGENTS.md and CLAUDE.md.
Tool Economy Analysis: Identify and streamline token-inefficient MCP tool calls or large file payload reads.
Severity-Ranked Recommendations: Present actionable improvement candidates ordered strictly by impact on agent reliability and token efficiency.

Architecture & Map of Content (MOC)

[ Session Logs & Past Mistakes ]
                │
                ▼
┌───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1. 6-Category Retrospective Audit     │
│    (Nav, Checks, Standards, Steering, │
│     Tooling, Info Access)             │
└──────────────────┬────────────────────┘
                   │
                   ▼
┌───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 2. Rule Hierarchy Placement           │ ──► Auto-Check > Reviewer Rule > Doc Pointer > AGENTS.md
└──────────────────┬────────────────────┘
                   │
                   ▼
┌───────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 3. Severity-Ranked Action Items       │ ──► Concrete diffs to configs, linters, or standards
└───────────────────────────────────────┘

Audit Category	Evaluation Focus	Remediation Action
Navigation	Time spent searching files	Add concise navigation pointers in `docs/`
Automated Checks	Preventable syntax/type/path bugs	Add linter rules, Husky hooks, TypeScript strictness
Coding Standards	Missed architectural guidelines	Add rules to `CODING_STANDARDS.md` (read during review)
Steering Hygiene	Unwieldy `AGENTS.md` / `CLAUDE.md`	Prune no-ops, trim prose, push rules to sub-docs
Tool Economy	Expensive/redundant tool calls	Cache results, scope searches, optimize grep patterns
Info Access	Missing logs or credentials	Provision read-only logs or environment variables

Step-by-Step Procedure (TWI)

Step 1: Ingest Session Logs & Primary Sources

Action: Read the transcript logs of the specified session (or current session) and identify friction points, wrong turns, and repeated failures.
Key Point: Ground all critiques in observable events rather than generic advice.
Why: Retrospectives must solve real developer and agent friction observed in actual execution.

Step 2: Audit Against the 6 Improvement Categories

Action: Evaluate where the failure should ideally have been caught (e.g. automated check vs. reviewer vs. prompt pointer).
Inline Checklist:
- Can this mistake be caught by a linter or compiler flag?
- Does this belong in CODING_STANDARDS.md for the review agent?
- Are AGENTS.md files lean ($<100$ lines) and free of no-ops?

Step 3: Propose Severity-Ordered Action Items

Action: Format recommendations with concrete file diffs and command-line instructions.
Key Point: Clearly explain the trade-offs of each proposed rule change.
Why: Concrete proposals allow maintainers to accept improvements with a single confirmation.

Anti-Rationalization Guardrails

Tempting Rationalization	Binding Rule	Engineering Rationale
"Add a 50-line instruction to AGENTS.md for every bug encountered."	Push rules down to automated checks or review docs.	Overloading `AGENTS.md` bloats context window on every turn and degrades reasoning.
"Impose heavy coding standard rules on the implementer prompt."	Place coding standards in `CODING_STANDARDS.md` for review.	Implementers need context space for reasoning, debugging, and file exploration.
"Keep no-op instructions because they sound good."	Prune all instructions that do not demonstrably steer model behavior.	Dead instructions consume tokens and dilute attention on critical invariants.

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Other versions192 projects use a version of this.
Word for word · 0
None found.
Edited · 0
None found.
Wrote their own version · 192
mattpocock/skills★ 309ksame name
garrytan/gstack★ 139ksame name
formbricks/formbricks★ 13ksame name
ArcReel/ArcReel★ 6ksame name
vinvcn/mattpocock-skills-zh-CN★ 5.5ksame name
withcoral/coral★ 4.9ksame name
bergside/awesome-design-skills★ 2.9ksame name
MiniMax-AI/minimax-code★ 2.2ksame name
DenchHQ/DenchClaw★ 1.7ksame name
DenchHQ/ironclaw★ 1.7ksame name
182 more not listed
How matches are found. Word for word: the exact same text. Edited: shares passages with this file (“99% same” means 99% of its five-word phrases also appear here; 10% or more counts). Their own version: similar meaning, or, weakest, the same name. We can’t tell which project had it first. Projects are counted among the 200 most-starred candidates, and mentions are links to the repository we found, up to 50 per site, so both counts are a floor.
Used alongsideProjects with it also use ios-clean, ios-fix and 10 more.
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  Also in 7 projects that use this
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  Launch GStack Browser — AI-controlled Chromium with the sidebar extension baked in. Opens a visible browser window where you can watch every action in real time. The sidebar shows a live activity feed and chat. Anti-bot stealth built in. Use when asked to "open gstack browser", "launch browser", "connect chrome", "open chrome", "real browser", "launch chrome", "side panel", or "control my browser". Voice triggers (speech-to-text aliases): "show me the browser".
  Also in 8 projects that use this
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In this repository42 other files it gives its agents.
- AGENTS.mdAGENTS.md
- ai-data-remediationSkill
- ai-engineeringSkill
- codebase-designSkill
- code-reviewSkill
- diagnosing-bugsSkill
- domain-modelingSkill
- engineering-workflow-guideSkill
- git-safety-guardrailsSkill
- goalSkill
- grillingSkill
- grill-meSkill
- grill-with-docsSkill
- handoffSkill
- implementSkill
- implement-specSkill
- improve-codebase-architectureSkill
- j-spaceSkill
- migrate-to-shoehornSkill
- ml-best-practicesSkill
- prototypeSkill
- researchSkill
- resolving-merge-conflictsSkill
- scaffold-exercisesSkill
- setup-engineering-workflowsSkill
- setup-pre-commitSkill
- setup-ts-deep-modulesSkill
- skill-conductorSkill
- tddSkill
- teachSkill
- to-questionnaireSkill
- to-specSkill
- to-ticketsSkill
- triageSkill
- wait-whatSkill
- wayfinderSkill
- wizardSkill
- workflow-designerSkill
- writing-beatsSkill
- writing-for-agentsSkill
- writing-fragmentsSkill
- writing-shapeSkill

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1 rule. 0 are common, 1 is distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

Retro

Core Invariants

Architecture & Map of Content (MOC)

Step-by-Step Procedure (TWI)

Step 1: Ingest Session Logs & Primary Sources

Step 2: Audit Against the 6 Improvement Categories

Step 3: Propose Severity-Ordered Action Items

Anti-Rationalization Guardrails

Word for word · 0

Edited · 0

Wrote their own version · 192

ios-clean

ios-fix

plan-tune

pair-agent

landing-report

open-gstack-browser

Does it work?

No reviews yet

Your trail

Now do this for your own.