retro

name

retro

description

Use this skill when the user wants to retrospect on a session, conversation, or recent stretch of work — triggers are "/retro", "let's do a retro", "review this session", "what could we have done better", "any patterns we should codify", or any moment when 3+ commits have been made or the user signals a natural pause point. Analyzes the conversation for repeated corrections, missed AskUserQuestion opportunities, recurring workflows, and effective patterns; proposes concrete updates to user preferences, skills, project memory, or scheduled tasks. Also fires reflexively when the user is "blocked on a manual action" (reading, deciding, restarting) so retrospective work happens during idle time.

Session Retrospective Skill

Analyze the current session and propose improvements to the Cowork configuration (preferences, skills, project memory, scheduled tasks).

Workflow

Step 0: Compile Session Context

Before analysis, gather:

1. Commits in this session (if a git repo is in scope): git log --oneline -<N> since session start
2. Conversation events: corrections made, repeated instructions, workflows executed, AskUserQuestion invocations, tool permission denials, plan revisions
3. Outputs produced: files in workspace folder created/modified

Format as a concise bullet list. Keep this in your context for Step 1.

Step 1: Analyze for Patterns

Look for these in the conversation:

1. Repeated Corrections → preference candidate (the same mistake corrected 2+ times means it should be codified)
2. Repeated Explanations → preference or project memory candidate (context Claude could have inferred)
3. Repeated Workflows → skill candidate (multi-step processes executed manually 2+ times)
4. Repeated Sub-agent Patterns → skill candidate
5. Effective Patterns → preserve list (workflows that worked, agents that produced clean outputs)
6. Existing Config Issues → modification candidate (rules ignored, skills mis-fitting)

Step 2: Deduplication Guard

If this session has already produced commits, edits to preferences, or skill creations, exclude proposals that map to those changes. Mark them "Already codified in [hash / edit]".

Step 3: Present Findings

Two sections:

Section A: Patterns to Reinforce — what worked. Preserve these in future config edits.

Section B: Improvement Proposals — numbered list. Each:

## Proposal N: [Short title]

**Type**: preference / skill / project-memory / scheduled-task
**Target**: [where it should go]
**Pattern observed**: [what happened in this session — concrete example]
**Proposed change**: [exact text to add or behavior to codify]
**Priority**: high / medium / low

Step 4: User Selection

Use AskUserQuestion (multiSelect) to let the user pick which proposals to implement.

Step 5: Implement

For each approved proposal:

• Preference: surface the exact text the user should paste into Cowork User preferences (Cowork preferences are user-managed; Claude cannot edit them programmatically)
• Skill: draft a SKILL.md and supporting files in the workspace folder
• Project memory: write to the relevant project memory file (Cognee cognify if connected, or a CLAUDE.md/AGENTS.md in the project repo)
• Scheduled task: use the schedule skill

After implementation, present computer:// links for any new files.

When NOT to use

• Sessions with < 3 meaningful interactions (nothing to retrospect)
• The user has explicitly declined retro work in this session
• The session is mid-task and not at a natural pause