postmortem

name	postmortem
description	Use when a PR has been merged after receiving review feedback and you want to extract lessons learned. Analyzes reviewer comments, identifies gaps in skills and specialists, and applies fixes. Triggered by "run a postmortem", "PR retro", "lessons learned from this PR", or /postmortem.
tier	workflow
alwaysApply	false

PR Postmortem

PURPOSE: After a PR merges, analyze what reviewers caught to find gaps in skills, specialists, and review checklists -- then fix those gaps. Every merged PR becomes training data for making the system better next time.

GIT HOST: Commands in this skill use GitHub (gh) as the default. If git-host in jig.config.md is not github, read framework/GIT_HOST.md for the platform-specific command equivalents.

CONFIGURATION: Reads jig.config.md for ticket-system (to offer ticket creation for improvements) and main-branch.

---

When to Use

• A PR has been merged after receiving review feedback
• "Run a postmortem", "PR retro", "lessons learned from this PR"
• kickoff suggests this after the LEARN stage for features
• /postmortem invoked directly

Do NOT use when:

• The PR has not been merged yet (use pr-respond instead)
• The PR received no review comments (nothing to learn from)

---

Workflow

Interview (detect PR from branch or ask)
  |
Fetch PR data (metadata, comments, reviews)
  |
Analyze comments (separate human from bot, focus on real fixes)
  |
Extract patterns (what was wrong, principle violated, how fixed)
  |
Cross-reference existing skills (is the pattern already documented?)
  |
Route: pattern violation --> Specialist Diagnosis
       correctness bug  --> Logic Reviewer Diagnosis
  |
Apply changes to skill files directly
  |
Report (patterns table, changes made, items needing judgment)

---

Step 1: Interview

Detect the PR from the current branch, or ask.

# Try to find a merged PR for the current branch
gh pr list --head "$(git branch --show-current)" --state merged --json number,title --jq '.[0]'

If found, confirm: "Found PR #XXXX -- is that the one you want to audit?"

If not found, ask:

Which PR would you like to run a postmortem on? Provide a PR number or URL.

---

Step 2: Fetch PR Data

Run in parallel. Extract owner/repo from the git remote -- do not hardcode.

# PR metadata
gh pr view {number} --json title,body,state,mergedAt,headRefName,files

# All inline review comments (paginated)
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}/comments --paginate

# Review summaries
gh api repos/{owner}/{repo}/pulls/{number}/reviews

---

Step 3: Analyze Comments

Filter:

• Separate human reviewers from bots (cursor[bot], sentry[bot], dependabot[bot], github-actions[bot], and any other bot identifiers)
• Bot comments that led to real fixes count -- include them
• Bot comments dismissed as false positives -- skip them
• Focus on comments where the author responded with a fix ("good catch", "fixed in", "done")

For each actionable comment, extract:

Field	Example
What was wrong	Hardcoded color value instead of theme token
Principle violated	Use design system tokens for all visual properties
How it was fixed	Replaced hex value with token.colorPrimary
Who caught it	reviewer-username (human)

Categorize into pattern groups -- discover from the data, do not force into preset buckets. Common categories from past postmortems:

• Styling discipline (tokens, spacing, theming)
• Memoization / performance
• Translation completeness (including accessibility attributes)
• Type safety / enum handling
• State management / async safety
• Dead code / speculative code
• Accessibility affordances
• Frontend-backend contract mismatches
• Error handling gaps
• Security concerns

---

Step 4: Cross-Reference Existing Skills

Scan the project's skills and specialists directories to find relevant files. For each pattern group:

1. Search team/skills/, packs/*/skills/, and core/skills/ for related skills
2. Search team/specialists/, packs/*/specialists/, and core/specialists/ for related specialists
3. Read the candidate skill(s) or specialist(s)
4. Check if the pattern is already documented
5. Classify:

Classification	Meaning	Action
Already covered	Skill documents this but agent ignored it	Flag -- may need stronger wording or examples
Gap	Relevant skill exists but does not cover this pattern	Add to that skill
No home	No relevant skill covers this domain	Add to a specialist or project-level config

---

Step 5: Route the Finding

Before diving into diagnosis, determine which part of the review system should have caught the finding:

Finding Type	Route to	Examples
Pattern violation	Swarm Specialist Diagnosis	Missing translations, raw throws, wrong imports, dead code, hardcoded tokens
Correctness bug	Logic Reviewer Diagnosis	Comparator mismatch, asymmetric paths, NULL handling, broken caller contract, state lifecycle

How to tell the difference: Pattern findings can be caught by scanning the diff for a known anti-pattern. Correctness findings require reasoning -- tracing a value through function boundaries, checking if the inverse path handles the same cases, or reading files outside the diff to verify contracts.

---

Swarm Specialist Diagnosis

When a missed finding should have been caught by the review swarm (review), walk through these failure modes in order to identify the root cause:

#	Failure Mode	How to Diagnose	Fix
1	No specialist covers this concern	Search specialists/*.md in all three discovery directories -- none have this in "What to Check"	Create a new specialist file
2	Specialist exists but globs did not match	Check the specialist's globs against the file path that was missed	Update globs in frontmatter
3	Specialist ran but prompt did not cover this pattern	Read the specialist body -- the specific pattern is not mentioned	Add the pattern to the specialist's "What to Check"
4	Specialist ran, prompt covers it, model missed it	Pattern is documented but the model's capability is insufficient	Upgrade model in frontmatter (haiku -> sonnet -> opus)
5	Specialist ran, prompt covers it, model is capable	Prompt has too many concerns -- specialist needs splitting	Split into two specialist files
6	Specialist was skipped due to tier	Specialist is full-only but finding occurred during per-task review	Change tier to fast-pass in frontmatter

Always diagnose before adding. If the specialist already covers the pattern (mode 4 or 5), adding more text to the prompt makes it worse, not better. Upgrade the model or split the specialist instead.

Verification step: After proposing a fix, check that it would have actually caught the finding:

• If adding globs, verify the missed file path matches the new pattern
• If upgrading the model, verify the concern requires reasoning the cheaper model cannot do
• If splitting, verify the new specialist's prompt is focused enough to catch it

---

Logic Reviewer Diagnosis

When a missed finding is a correctness bug that the logic reviewer should have caught, walk through these failure modes:

#	Failure Mode	How to Diagnose	Fix
1	Logic reviewer did not run	Was this a per-task review (fast-pass tier)? Logic reviewer only runs pre-PR.	If this class of bug needs to be caught per-task, consider promoting to a specialist
2	No reasoning pattern covers this	Read the reasoning patterns in the logic reviewer -- does any pattern's trigger match?	Add a new reasoning pattern (or refine an existing pattern's trigger/procedure)
3	Pattern exists but trigger did not fire	The pattern's "When" section does not describe this code shape	Broaden the trigger -- add the missed code shape to the "When" list
4	Pattern triggered but procedure missed it	The "How" steps did not lead to discovering the bug	Add a step to the procedure, or add a "What breaks" example
5	Procedure would find it, but exploration did not reach the file	The logic reviewer reads callers/types proactively, but this file was not in scope	Add the file pattern to the proactive exploration directives
6	Everything was in place but the model did not connect the dots	The pattern, trigger, procedure, and files were all correct -- model just missed it	Add a concrete "What breaks" example matching this exact scenario

Key insight: The logic reviewer improves through examples, not rules. Unlike specialists (which improve by adding checklist items), the logic reviewer improves by adding concrete "What breaks" examples under each reasoning pattern. When the model sees a specific past failure, it is far more likely to catch the next similar mistake than if you just add an abstract rule.

How to add examples from postmortem findings:

1. Identify which reasoning pattern should have caught it
2. Open the logic reviewer file (e.g., core/skills/review/logic-reviewer.md)
3. Under that pattern's "What breaks" section, add a one-line example:
   • {description of what went wrong} ({PR number or brief context})
4. Keep examples concrete and specific -- not abstract rules

When to promote a logic finding to a specialist instead:

If the same correctness bug appears 3+ times across different PRs, it has become a pattern, not a one-off logic issue. At that point:

• Create a new swarm specialist (or add to an existing one) that checks for this specific anti-pattern
• The specialist catches it cheaply and fast (haiku/sonnet) so the logic reviewer does not need to
• This is how the system self-optimizes: rare bugs start as logic reviewer catches, frequent bugs graduate to specialists

---

Step 6: Prepare the Workspace

The PR is already merged. The user is likely still on the old branch.

# Stash any uncommitted work
git stash

# Get onto latest main
git checkout {main-branch} && git pull origin {main-branch}

# Create improvement branch
git checkout -b {username}/skill-improvements-from-pr-{number}

Read main-branch from jig.config.md (default: main).

If a ticket should be created for the improvements, offer to do so using the project's configured ticket-system from jig.config.md. Use title format: "Skill improvements -- lessons from PR #{number}".

---

Step 7: Apply Changes

Edit skill and specialist files directly. Follow the existing style of each file:

• Pitfalls -> table rows (| Problem | Solution |)
• Anti-patterns -> code examples with clear good/bad markers
• Checklists -> bullet points with -
• Reviewer prompts -> question format (- Pattern X present?)

Keep additions concise -- 1-3 lines per pattern. A pitfall row is better than a paragraph.

Files to check and update:

• team/skills/ -- team-specific skills that should cover the pattern
• core/skills/ -- framework skills if no team skill covers the domain
• team/specialists/ -- team-specific review specialists
• core/specialists/ -- framework review specialists
• core/skills/review/logic-reviewer.md -- for "What breaks" examples
• core/skills/review/tiers.md -- should a specialist's tier or severity change?
• Project-level config (CLAUDE.md or equivalent) -- for project-wide rules

Keeping reviewers in sync: When adding a pattern to a skill, check whether it should also appear in any automated reviewer configurations the project uses. The skill is the authoritative source -- reviewer configs are concise summaries optimized for automated review context. Not every skill detail belongs in reviewer configs, but review-checkable rules (flag X, never do Y) should be represented.

---

Step 8: Report and Hand Off

Present a structured summary:

## PR Postmortem: PR #{number} -- "{title}"

### Comments Analyzed
- X comments from human reviewers
- Y comments from bots (Z actionable)
- N led to code changes

### Patterns Found

| Pattern | Count | Reviewer(s) | Skill | Status |
|---------|-------|-------------|-------|--------|
| Hardcoded tokens | 2 | reviewer-a | fe-styling | Gap -- added |
| Missing memoization | 1 | reviewer-b | fe-performance | Gap -- added |
| ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |

### Changes Made
- `team/skills/fe-styling/SKILL.md`: Added 2 anti-pattern examples
- `core/specialists/performance.md`: Added memoization check
- ...

### Items Needing Human Judgment
- [Anything ambiguous or subjective]

Then: "Ready to commit and push? Or want to review the diffs first?"

---

Where to Put Guidance

When deciding where a pattern belongs, use the narrowest applicable scope:

Scope	Location	Example
One feature	Feature-tier skill	Negation logic in a specific filter system
One domain	Domain-tier skill	Objects inside memoization hooks
Cross-cutting	Specialist file	Dead code, async safety, security patterns
Reviewer gate	Review tiers config	Tier assignments, severity levels
Project-wide	Project config (CLAUDE.md or equivalent)	Never add indexes without asking

Avoid duplication. A pattern belongs in ONE primary location (the skill or specialist). Automated reviewer configs are concise summaries -- not a second source of truth.

---

Common Mistakes

Mistake	Fix
Adding text to a specialist that already covers the pattern	Diagnose first. If the pattern is documented and the model missed it, upgrade the model or split -- do not add more text
Creating a specialist for a one-off issue	Start as a logic reviewer example. Only promote to specialist after 3+ occurrences
Skipping bot comments entirely	Bot comments that led to real fixes are valuable signal
Including dismissed false positives	Only analyze comments that resulted in actual code changes
Adding broad, abstract rules	Keep additions concrete. "Check comparators" is useless. "buildFilterValue produces greaterThan but handler only accepts before/after" is useful
Not verifying the fix would work	After proposing a change, check that the new globs match, the new prompt covers it, or the example is specific enough
Hardcoding ticket system references	Read ticket-system from jig.config.md -- offer to create tickets using the configured system
Forgetting to update automated reviewer configs	When adding a review-checkable rule to a skill, propagate to reviewer configs if applicable
Duplicating patterns across skills and specialists	One primary location per pattern. Other locations reference it, not repeat it

---

Integration

Called by:

• kickoff during the LEARN stage (post-merge)

Related skills:

• review -- the review swarm whose specialists this skill improves
• pr-create -- the PR whose comments this skill analyzes
• pr-respond -- for addressing feedback before the postmortem
• extend -- if the postmortem reveals the need for an entirely new skill or specialist

---

Quick Reference

Element	Rule
Input	PR number or URL (auto-detect from branch)
Output	Edited skill/specialist files + structured report
Branch	{username}/skill-improvements-from-pr-{number}
Ticket	Optional -- offer to create via configured ticket system
Scope	Only patterns that led to real code changes -- skip noise
Style	Match the existing style of each skill/specialist file
Diagnosis	Always diagnose before adding. Specialists: 6 failure modes. Logic reviewer: 6 failure modes
Promotion	One-off correctness bugs start as logic reviewer examples. Patterns (3+ occurrences) graduate to specialists