retrospective

name	retrospective
description	Sprint Retrospective — record improvements for the next cycle
disable-model-invocation	false

Inputs

• state.json → phase: sprint_review
• improvements.json (existing improvements + last_consolidation_sprint)
• sprint.json (Sprint id)

Outputs

• improvements.json → entries[] appended; every 3 Sprints the consolidation pass archives stale entries (see Step 4)
• state.json → phase: retrospective
• sprint.json → status: "complete"

Preconditions

• state.json phase: "sprint_review"
• sprint.json exists

PO Mode (po_mode: "agent")

When .scrum/config.json.po_mode == "agent", every PO-approval prompt below re-targets to the product-owner teammate per ../../rules/scrum-context.md § PO seat resolution; the ceremony shape is unchanged. Skill-specific: with no human at the keyboard, the Step 7 "recommend /clear or session restart to the user" line cannot be acted on by anyone in-session (human mode keeps that recommendation bit-for-bit).

Overrides in agent mode:

• Sprint-continuation handshake (replaces Step 7). Skip the user-facing /clear recommendation. The retrospective is not the end of the workflow — leaving state.json.phase at retrospective is a dead end: nothing advances it, and the autonomy watchdog reads an unchanged phase as no_progress and trips the failure circuit breaker. After the retrospective Exit Criteria are met, the SM must obtain a Product-Owner sprint_continuation decision and advance the phase itself (Step 8 below). The PO — not the SM and not the watchdog — owns the call of whether another Sprint is warranted, because it turns on Product-Goal completion. Only once the phase has advanced to backlog_created, integration_sprint, or complete does the SM end the turn.
• Improvement-action extraction (Step 2 / Step 3 reflection). Where the reflection would normally surface "ask the user whether is acceptable" items, route the same question as [sprint-<N>] PO_DECISION_REQUEST kind=change_request options=[adopt,defer,reject] recommendation=<sm-preferred> to the product-owner teammate before recording the improvement, so the improvements.json entry carries the matching dec_id. If no such "ask the user" prompt exists in your current reflection, this rule is a no-op.
• Assumption-flagged Sprint Review decisions feed improvements. Any PO_DECISION from the current Sprint whose rationale begins with ASSUMPTION: (or which sets the wrapper's assumption=true flag — see ../../agents/product-owner.md § Anti-loop rules) is a candidate improvement: record an entry pointing to the dec_id so the next refinement / planning cycle revisits the unverified premise.

Steps

1. state.json → phase: "retrospective":

   .scrum/scripts/update-state-phase.sh retrospective
   

2. Reflect on Sprint: what went well, what to improve (process, communication, tooling, code quality)
3. Record ≥1 improvement → call .scrum/scripts/append-improvement.sh --sprint <sprint-id> --description "<what to improve>" for each item. The wrapper auto-assigns id (imp-NNNN), stamps created_at, sets status: "active", and validates against improvements.schema.json. In po_mode=agent, when the entry derives from a PO_DECISION_REQUEST round-trip, pass --dec-id dec-NNNN to link the entry to the decision record. Direct edits to .scrum/improvements.json are blocked by pre-tool-use-scrum-state-guard.sh.
4. Consolidation check (every 3 Sprints): read improvements.json.last_consolidation_sprint. Consolidation is DUE when it is null and entries span ≥3 Sprints, or when the current Sprint number is ≥3 ahead of it. When due:
   1. Review every status: "active" entry and decide which are stale — addressed (the improvement landed), obsolete (the process/tool it targets no longer exists), or superseded by a newer entry. Left unconsolidated, the active list grows unbounded and stops being readable (a target project reached 150+ entries with consolidation 20+ Sprints overdue).
   2. Execute the decision in one atomic call:

      .scrum/scripts/consolidate-improvements.sh --sprint <sprint-id> \
        --archive imp-NNNN --archive imp-NNNN
      

      Zero --archive flags is valid ("reviewed, nothing stale") and still bumps last_consolidation_sprint. Direct edits to .scrum/improvements.json remain blocked by pre-tool-use-scrum-state-guard.sh — the wrapper is the only sanctioned path.
5. Present retrospective report: went well, to improve, and (when Step 4 ran) the archived-items summary
6. sprint.json → status: "complete":

   .scrum/scripts/update-sprint-status.sh complete
   

Ref: FR-012

7. Session reset recommendation

After Sprint deliverables are committed and Retrospective is complete, recommend session reset to the user:

"Sprint N complete. All state persisted to .scrum/ JSON files. Recommend /clear or session restart to free context for next Sprint. Session-context hook will restore phase automatically on restart."

Rationale: Scrum Master context accumulates across phases (requirements, design discussions, review findings). By Sprint end, context is near capacity. All durable state lives in .scrum/ files — session-context.sh restores phase on restart.

8. Sprint-continuation handshake (po_mode: "agent" only)

Human mode skips this step (Step 7's /clear recommendation applies instead; the user drives the next Sprint manually, and sprint-planning accepts phase: retrospective as its entry).

In agent mode, once Steps 1–6 are complete, the SM asks the PO what comes next and advances the workflow:

1. Send the Product Owner teammate:

   [sprint-<N>] PO_DECISION_REQUEST kind=sprint_continuation
   options=[next_sprint,integration_sprint,complete]
   recommendation=<sm-preferred>
   payload: product_goal_status=<met|not_met>,
   refined_pbis_remaining=<count>,
   sprints_this_launch=<history_len - sprint_baseline>/<max_sprints>
   

   The recommendation follows the same precedence the PO uses (see ../../agents/product-owner.md § Sprint continuation): default next_sprint while feature PBIs remain and Sprints are left.

2. On PO_DECISION ... decision=choice:<label> dec_id=dec-NNNN, advance state.json.phase to match — this is the step that unblocks the autonomy watchdog:

   PO decision	Phase transition
   choice:next_sprint	.scrum/scripts/update-state-phase.sh backlog_created
   choice:integration_sprint	.scrum/scripts/update-state-phase.sh integration_sprint
   choice:complete	.scrum/scripts/update-state-phase.sh complete

   The decision is already audit-logged by the PO via append-po-decision.sh; the SM only performs the phase write.

3. End the turn. The watchdog's completion-gate treats a backlog_created phase that follows a recorded Sprint (sprint-history non-empty) as a recycle checkpoint, so the next session starts fresh on Sprint Planning. integration_sprint and complete are likewise clean stop points.

Do not end the turn while phase is still retrospective in agent mode — that is the dead end this step exists to prevent.

Exit Criteria

• ≥1 improvement recorded (all fields set)
• sprint.json status: "complete"
• Human mode: state.json phase: "retrospective"; session reset recommended to user.
• Agent mode (po_mode: "agent"): a sprint_continuation PO decision is recorded and state.json phase has advanced to backlog_created, integration_sprint, or complete (never left at retrospective).