Session log

Writes a durable record of a work session. These logs get treated as ground truth by whoever reads them next — including you, six weeks from now, with none of this context. Accuracy matters more than polish.

When to run this

• A build, fix, audit, or research wave just finished
• A session is ending and there's state the next one would need
• Something was root-caused and the mechanism is worth keeping

Don't run it for trivial work. A one-line fix doesn't need a log.

Where it goes

Wherever the project keeps its session records — a docs/sessions/ directory, a notes vault, a wiki. Ask once if it isn't obvious, then stay consistent.

A filename carrying the date and a short description sorts and scans well: YYYY-MM-DD Short Description.md.

Steps

1. Gather the facts before writing

Do not write from memory of the conversation alone. Collect:

• PR numbers, commit SHAs, migration timestamps, deploy IDs
• What was actually verified, and by what command
• What failed, and what's still open
• Anything only a human can do

If a fact can't be confirmed, mark it unconfirmed rather than dropping it or asserting it.

2. Write the body

# YYYY-MM-DD — <what was root-caused or shipped>

<One line naming how the work was run: who planned, who built, who reviewed.>

## What happened

- Mechanism first. Why this happened, not just what.
- Concrete evidence: PR numbers, SHAs, timestamps, row counts, log lines.
- Distinguish proven from inferred, explicitly.

## Fix

1. Numbered steps. Each states what was verified and how.

## Standing DO-NOT rules
<Only if the session produced prohibitions. Ground each in the incident that caused it.>

## Remaining items — needs a human

- [ ] Things only they can do

Links: <related documents>

If the notes system uses frontmatter, include an outcome field: one full sentence stating what is now true that wasn't before. It is the most-read line in the file. Make it a real claim, not a label.

3. The two sections everyone drops

## Remaining items and the links footer are required. They preserve unresolved work and the source context a future session needs.

Write both, every time. If nothing is genuinely held for a human, write None — nothing is held. rather than deleting the heading.

4. Mark every claim

Label each one VERIFIED (how) or ASSUMED (why not checked) inline. Do not blur them.

"Verified" should mean a human or a command actually confirmed it. A claim about production requires a query against production — not a passing test, not a merged PR, not a green deploy.

5. Resolve every link before saving

Check each link target against a real file before writing it. A notes system accumulates broken references fast, and a log full of dead links is a log nobody trusts.

6. Update the project's state

If the work changed a project's status, add a dated state section to that project's main document — newest first, prepend, never overwrite history.

If the work advanced a program with a handoff document, update it in place so the next session picks up correctly.

7. Feed the lessons back

If the user corrected something during the session, write the lesson somewhere durable — a rules file, a memory store, this skill itself. That is how corrections stop repeating.

House style

• Specific and falsifiable. Vague summaries are worse than nothing here.
• Never claim a status without saying how it was checked.
• Lead with bad news. Don't bury it.
• Write for a reader with none of your context.

Do not

• Do not overwrite an existing log. Read first, then edit.
• Do not write into machine-generated directories.
• Do not create scratch files or build output alongside the notes.