self-improvement

name	self-improvement
description	Review completed work, analyze mistakes, identify repeatable improvements, and turn validated lessons into memory or reusable skills. Use after substantial tasks, failures, or review-heavy work.
always	false
enabled	true

Self-Improvement

Use this skill after meaningful work, not after trivial replies.

Primary Goals

1. Review what was just done
2. Identify concrete weaknesses or risks
3. Extract reusable tactics
4. Persist only the learnings that deserve to survive

When To Use

• after completing a non-trivial coding or debugging task
• after a failure, retry loop, or wrong assumption
• after a review that uncovered repeatable issues
• when a workflow feels reusable enough to become a skill

Skip it for one-off small answers with no reusable pattern.

How It Fits The Current Memory Framework

Use the current Horbot memory layout, not ad-hoc logs:

• durable facts and lasting rules go to L2/MEMORY.md
• recent outcomes and concise summaries go to L1/HISTORY.md
• reusable tactics and corrected assumptions go to L1/REFLECTION.md

If the completed work forms a repeatable workflow, Horbot may also distill it into a user skill under the current agent's skills directory.

Recommended Workflow

1. Review

Use the templates in templates/ when helpful:

• templates/code-review.md
• templates/capability-assessment.md
• templates/learning-plan.md

Focus on concrete evidence from the work that just happened.

2. Classify The Learning

• durable project truth -> MEMORY.md
• recent progress or outcome -> HISTORY.md
• reusable tactic / lesson learned -> REFLECTION.md
• repeatable operating procedure -> candidate skill

3. Validate Before Persisting

Only persist learnings that are:

• specific
• evidence-backed
• reusable
• safe to keep

Do not preserve vague self-praise, unverified guesses, or secrets.

Relation To Automatic Skill Distillation

Horbot can run a background skill review after successful tool-backed work.

That mechanism works best when:

• the task used real tools
• the result contains a concrete procedure or checklist
• the final output clearly describes the steps that worked

When the workflow is reusable, the system may:

1. create or update a skill
2. record the reusable tactic in reflection/history
3. make that workflow available for later sessions

Guardrails

• prefer small, high-signal learnings over long reports
• do not create a new skill for project-specific or one-off work
• avoid duplicating existing skills when an update is enough
• verify important improvements before treating them as durable knowledge
• keep backward compatibility and user intent in mind