| name | autonomous-improvement |
| description | Platform improvement governance — what to auto-fix vs what needs approval, detect-fix-report pattern, and improvement cadence rules. Use when user says "auto improve", "platform fix", "should I ask first", "auto implement", "improvement approval", "detect fix report", "nightly fixes", "autonomous changes", or any platform self-improvement activity. |
Autonomous Improvement Skill
Governance framework for platform self-improvement. Defines what maintenance agents (context-auditor, skill-optimizer, platform-manager, nightly reflection) can auto-implement vs what requires human approval.
Core Mandate
"I'm not approving anything. You should automatically improve everything." — platform owner (2026-05-05)
The pattern: Detect → Fix → Report. NOT Detect → Propose → Wait → Fix.
Auto-Implement Immediately (NO approval needed)
These categories are pre-approved for autonomous execution by any maintenance agent:
| Category | Examples |
|---|
| Agent instruction updates | Fix stale refs, outdated context, wording improvements |
| Skill extraction & optimization | Create new skills, refactor agents to use skills |
| Memory cleanup | Trim bloated working.md, fix stale references, prune |
| Configuration fixes | Cron schedules, quiet hours violations, stale prompts |
| Standing order updates | Persist new patterns, update lessons learned |
| Context hygiene | Fix pregnancy→postpartum refs, outdated family status |
| Working memory updates | Any agent's working.md maintenance |
| Template & config maintenance | Fix task templates, update config files |
| Data cleanup | Shopping list dedup, task dedup, stale data removal |
| Copilot-instructions updates | Non-breaking improvements, new learned behaviors |
| Skill content updates | Fix outdated procedures, add missing rules |
| Extension config tweaks | Non-breaking configuration adjustments |
Still Requires Approval (Escalate First)
These categories need explicit human sign-off before execution:
| Category | Why |
|---|
| Creating brand-new domain agents | New .github/agents/ files change the platform topology |
| Deleting or disabling agents/extensions | Destructive — may lose capabilities |
| Architectural changes | New data models, new extension patterns, schema migrations |
| Security-sensitive changes | Auth flows, secret handling, permission changes |
| Notification behavior changes | Affects how family members receive messages |
| Major cross-agent refactors | Changes communication patterns between agents |
| Cron schedule changes | Affects when agents fire (could cause spam or gaps) |
Implementation Cadence
| Trigger | Agent | Timing | Action |
|---|
| Nightly reflection | platform-manager | 9 PM CT | Auto-implement ALL Tier 1/2 fixes found |
| Context audit | context-auditor | On-demand / scheduled | Find issues, fix auto-fixable, queue rest |
| Skill optimization | skill-optimizer | On-demand / scheduled | Extract skills, refactor agents, commit |
| Improvement tasks | Any maintenance agent | Within 24 hours of creation | Pick up queued improvement tasks and execute |
The Detect → Fix → Report Workflow
Step 1: Detect
- Scan target files/systems for issues
- Classify each finding: auto-fix category or escalation-needed
Step 2: Fix (for auto-fix category only)
- Make the change directly (edit files, create skills, update configs)
- Commit with clear conventional message
- If multi-file: ensure consistency across all affected files
Step 3: Report
- Report what was DONE (past tense), not what's proposed
- Include in nightly Telegram summary or immediate notification for significant changes
- Log changes in agent working memory / events.log
- Format: "✅ Auto-fixed: [brief description of what changed and why]"
Step 4: Track
- Update working memory with changes made
- Note any follow-up work still needed
- Record if a pattern emerged that should become a recurring check
Escalation Format
When something needs approval, create a task:
add_task(
title: "Approval needed: [brief description]",
category: "general",
priority: "medium",
assignee: "primary_user",
surface: "human",
notes: "What: [proposed change]\nWhy: [reason]\nRisk: [what could go wrong]\nAffects: [which agents/files]"
)
Anti-Patterns
- ❌ Proposing improvements and waiting for approval when they're clearly auto-fix category
- ❌ Making approval-required changes without escalating first
- ❌ Reporting proposed changes instead of executed changes in summaries
- ❌ Accumulating improvement debt by deferring safe changes
- ❌ Asking "should I fix this?" for things in the auto-fix category — just fix them
- ❌ Making changes without logging them (always update working memory + events.log)
Relationship to Other Skills
correction-persistence — When a user corrects behavior, persist across all layers. That's a specific case of the detect→fix→report pattern triggered by human feedback.agent-skill-management — The extraction methodology for skill-specific improvements. This skill governs the DECISION to act, not the HOW of skill extraction.repo-workflow — For larger fixes that need isolated branches. Most auto-fixes are small enough for direct edits.
