| name | self-improve |
| description | Capture durable user feedback into the governing skill/doc, or propose creating a new skill when no suitable one exists, so future sessions don't repeat the mistake. Use when the user rejects, reverts, or overrides the agent's output or approach on something a skill/doc covers or should cover, and when manually invoked to improve or create guidance. |
| allowed-tools | Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep |
| license | MIT |
| metadata | {"author":"Francesco Borzì","version":"1.9"} |
Self-improve
Suggest durable improvements to the skill or governing doc that should have steered the agent,
so the next session gets it right without being told again — and apply them only after the user
approves. The skill proposes; the user stays in control of every change. Three ways in:
- Manual — the user invokes
/self-improve to deliberately improve a skill or doc.
- Self-triggered — the agent notices it was corrected on something a skill/doc governs (or
should). Don't silently correct and move on, but don't derail the task either: note the lesson,
finish what the user asked for, and offer to persist it at the next natural breakpoint.
- Driven by another skill — a caller hands over content that is already durable guidance plus an
already-chosen target (scope, form, and path — possibly a new file). It resolved both with the
user, so skip steps 1-2 and run only draft + apply.
"Skill/doc" means any standing instruction: a SKILL.md, AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md, a
coding-standards or convention doc, a rules file — anything that guides future agents.
Hard rules
- Confirm before applying. The skill's job is to suggest, never to change text on its own.
Never edit a skill or doc without the user's explicit go-ahead on the concrete change — present it
as a diff and apply only on approval, whether the user invoked the skill or the agent
self-triggered. State plainly whether a change is not yet applied (awaiting approval) or already
applied (and where), so the user never has to ask.
- Editing any skill/doc → always route the write through one of two skills to keep it compact;
never edit it directly. A
SKILL.md goes through
compact-skill-creator; any other doc (rule,
AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md, convention doc) goes through
compact-docs-writer. Actually invoke the skill and follow its
workflow before drafting or applying; reading it, applying its principles by hand, or naming it
after a direct edit does not count.
Recognize a persistable correction (self-trigger)
Signals the agent was corrected in a way worth persisting: the user rejects or reverts a choice
("no, do X instead"), states a standing preference ("we always…", "never…"), or redirects an action
the agent took under a skill or doc.
Only persist a durable lesson — one that generalizes and will recur. Skip one-off,
task-specific tweaks that won't apply next time; persisting those pollutes the docs.
Whenever unsure whether it generalizes, ask the user.
Workflow
- Capture the lesson. State, in one line, the general rule the feedback implies — not the
surface incident ("Mock external HTTP in unit tests," not "the agent mocked the wrong call").
- Locate the target. Find which skill/doc governs this action (search skills,
AGENTS.md/
CLAUDE.md, convention docs). If one exists, it's the target — and if that rule already existed
yet failed to steer the agent, the discoverability gap is the lesson, not a no-op: don't stop
at "the rule exists." Diagnose why it didn't fire (buried, in a doc the agent wouldn't open for
this action, scoped or worded too narrowly, or unenforced) and fix that root cause: surface it
where the agent looks, tighten its scope, cross-reference it, or propose mechanical enforcement
(e.g. a lint rule). If none fits, propose a new target and ask before drafting: a new skill for a
recurring workflow, a new rule for a standing constraint, or the most fitting doc otherwise. Ask
whenever unsure.
- Draft the edit. Write the rule into the target as the least text that fully captures it:
agent-agnostic ("the agent", never a vendor name), no process narration, no restating — a real
durable instruction. Prefer tightening or extending an existing rule over appending a new one.
If the lesson reverses an existing rule, surface that explicitly — show the old rule, the
feedback, and the proposed replacement — and never overwrite it silently; the contradiction may
mean the feedback is context-specific, not a true reversal.
- Apply the edit. Route the write per the Hard rules —
SKILL.md → compact-skill-creator, any
other doc → compact-docs-writer — presenting a diff and applying only on approval.
