retro

name	retro
description	Run a safeword retrospective on the current session on demand — mine the session transcript for qualitative safeword friction (bugs / rough edges / gaps) and file it upstream behind the egress guard. Use when the user says "run a retro", "/retro", "retrospective on this session", or wants to capture friction before the session ends. The retro also auto-fires at Stop; this is the manual, on-demand path.
allowed-tools	*

Retro

Mine THIS session's transcript for safeword friction and file it — the manual counterpart to the Stop-hook auto-trigger. This skill is thin: it resolves the transcript path (which a user-invoked command, unlike the Stop hook, does not receive in a payload), then defers to the existing guides and the safeword retro CLI, which owns extraction, the egress guard, and filing.

1. Resolve the transcript path (never guess it)

safeword retro requires --transcript <path> and refuses to guess. Resolve the current session's transcript for THIS harness. Each rule below resolves deterministically from the environment; only fall back to asking the user when the deterministic path comes up empty.

• Claude Code: ~/.claude/projects/<encoded-cwd>/$CLAUDE_SESSION_ID.jsonl — the cwd is encoded with non-alphanumerics (/, ., _, …) → -. When $CLAUDE_SESSION_ID is unset, list that projects directory and take the newest .jsonl:

  ls -t ~/.claude/projects/"${PWD//[^a-zA-Z0-9]/-}"/*.jsonl | head -1
  

• Codex: Codex does not reliably expose the session id to agent-launched commands (openai/codex#8923), so resolve the newest rollout by mtime — the current session's rollout is the one being appended to right now. Rollouts live under ${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/sessions/YYYY/MM/DD/rollout-<timestamp>-<id>.jsonl (-exec ls -t {} + is portable to macOS's BSD find, unlike -printf):

  find "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/sessions" -name 'rollout-*.jsonl' -exec ls -t {} + 2> /dev/null | head -1
  

  If $CODEX_THREAD_ID happens to be set, prefer it for an exact match: find "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/sessions" -name "rollout-*-$CODEX_THREAD_ID.jsonl" 2>/dev/null | head -1.

• Cursor: Cursor delivers transcript_path only in hook payloads (never env), so the safeword Cursor hooks stash it to /tmp/safeword-cursor-transcript-<key> on every edit and shell command. /retro itself runs a shell command, so THIS conversation's stash is the freshest — read the newest one:

  f=$(ls -t /tmp/safeword-cursor-transcript-* 2> /dev/null | head -1)
  [ -n "$f" ] && cat "$f"
  

  If no stash exists (a session with no edits or shell commands yet), ask the user for the transcript path rather than guessing.

Echo the resolved path back to the user before proceeding, so a wrong path is caught before anything is filed.

2. Produce findings — pick one

• Hands-off (Claude only): let the CLI extract out-of-band via an isolated headless session. This spawns a claude -p subprocess, so it needs the claude CLI on PATH — on Codex / Cursor (no claude binary) prefer the in-context path below.

  safeword retro --transcript < path > --auto-extract
  

• In-context (any harness): extract the friction yourself following .safeword/guides/retro.md (fresh-context read of the transcript → structured findings JSON), then hand them off:

  safeword retro --transcript <path> --findings <findings.json>
  

Optional: --session-id <id> for stable ledger attribution across fires; --window-start <chars> to digest only the transcript from an offset (delta mode).

In a repo where the safeword binary isn't on PATH (e.g. this monorepo), substitute bun run safeword for safeword (runs the CLI from source via the root package.json script; bunx safeword also resolves the workspace-linked build).

3. Filing is code-owned — do not hand-write issues

Everything flows through the egress guard, then files upstream:

• Lane 1 (token available): the CLI files via REST and drains the spool, silently.
• Lane 2 (no token / cloud): the CLI spools the sanitized, post-egress drafts and a nudge surfaces them; file each verbatim per .safeword/guides/self-report-filing.md using your GitHub access. Never re-word or re-sanitize a spooled draft — the body is already code-assembled and egress-clean; the sanitizer is the security boundary. Enforced at the code-owned seams: each body is sealed with a bodyDigest at assembly, and verifyDraftBody (hooks/lib/retro-draft-spool.ts) refuses a mismatch — a re-worded draft stays spooled instead of filing.

Reminders

• The transcript is the input; the CLI + egress guard do the sanitizing and filing. Keep this skill thin — don't reimplement extraction or sanitization here.
• Over-redaction is the safe direction (findings file to a PUBLIC tracker); trust the guard, don't loosen it.
• If nothing substantial surfaced, say so — filing zero findings is a valid outcome.