retrospective

name	retrospective
description	Backwards analysis of the last N closed cards — recurring failure modes, generalization candidates, rough velocity feel. Read-only; never files cards. AUTO-INVOKE on "what have we learned", "retro", "any patterns lately", "what keeps going wrong".

Codex GoC Command

When this skill says goc ..., resolve the executable before running the command:

• In the game-of-cards source checkout, use uv run goc ....
• If goc is already on PATH, use goc ....
• If this skill is loaded from the Game of Cards Codex plugin, use the bundled helper at <plugin-root>/skills/_goc-bootstrap.sh ...; the plugin root is the parent directory that contains both skills/ and bin/.
• If the plugin root is not obvious from the loaded skill path, locate the helper with:

GOC_BOOTSTRAP=$(find "$HOME/.codex/plugins/cache" -path '*/game-of-cards/*/skills/_goc-bootstrap.sh' -type f -perm -111 -exec ls -t {} + 2>/dev/null | head -n 1)
test -n "$GOC_BOOTSTRAP" || { echo "GoC Codex plugin bootstrap not found" >&2; exit 127; }
"$GOC_BOOTSTRAP" --help

Use that helper path in place of bare goc for the rest of the skill. Do not edit deck files directly just because goc is not on PATH.

When to invoke

Invoke when the user says "what have we learned", "review recent work", "any patterns lately", "look back", "retrospective", "retro", "what's our velocity", or "what keeps going wrong". May propose Skill(create-card) invocations for generalization candidates but never files them.

Preflight

If any ! block below shows goc: command not found, Permission for this action has been denied, or no such file or directory: .game-of-cards/deck/, stop and invoke Skill(kickoff) first. Kickoff detects which setup step is missing (CLI not installed, Bash allowance not granted, project state not scaffolded) and walks the user through it. Re-invoke this skill only after kickoff completes.

Context

!b=.claude/skills/_goc-bootstrap.sh; if [ -f $b ]; then sh $b --closed-since 90d --json; else goc --closed-since 90d --json; fi 2>&1 | head -100

Retrospective

Scrum's Sprint Retrospective (Schwaber & Sutherland) applied to the full card history. This skill looks backwards at completed work — something no other skill does. Skill(audit-deck) hunts NEW defects in the codebase; this skill reads the last N log.md closure entries, clusters by tag, and surfaces patterns: which failure modes recur, which closures mention the same root cause, which clusters are candidates for a generalization card.

Read-only — this skill inspects history and proposes actions. It never files cards, flips status, or mutates the deck. Any generalization card it identifies must be filed via a subsequent Skill(create-card).

N = $ARGUMENTS (default 10 if not provided).

Step 1 — Gather recent closures

A closure is any card in a terminal status — done, disproved, or superseded. --status done would hide the last two, which are the very cards Step 3 asks about, so scope to all and narrow on the terminal set. (Draft scaffolds ride along under --status all but carry closed_at: null, so the closure filter drops them.)

# Read the last N closed cards (every terminal status) sorted by closed_at
goc --status all --json 2>/dev/null | \
  python3 -c "
import json, sys
TERMINAL = {'done', 'disproved', 'superseded'}
cards = json.load(sys.stdin)
closed = [c for c in cards if c.get('closed_at') and c.get('status') in TERMINAL]
closed.sort(key=lambda c: c.get('closed_at', ''), reverse=True)
n = int('$ARGUMENTS'.strip() or '10')
for c in closed[:n]:
    print(json.dumps({'title': c['title'], 'closed_at': c['closed_at'],
                      'status': c.get('status'),
                      'tags': c.get('tags', []), 'contribution': c.get('contribution'),
                      'summary': (c.get('summary') or '')[:80]}))
" 2>/dev/null || true

For each surfaced card, also read its log.md closure entry:

# For each title from above, show its log.md
# (run per-card; replace <title> with actual value)
cat ".game-of-cards/deck/<title>/log.md" 2>/dev/null | tail -20

Step 2 — Cluster by tag

Group the N cards by their tags. For each cluster with ≥2 cards, report:

[<tag>] N cards closed
  - <title> (<closed_at>): <one-line summary>
  ...

Tags with only 1 card get a single [<tag>] 1 card line, no detail.

Step 3 — Surface failure patterns

Read the closure entries in log.md for each card. Look for:

• Cards closed with disproved or superseded (the status field on each Step 1 line) — what was wrong?
• Cards whose log.md mentions rework, revert, or "fixed incidentally".
• Cards that carried a waiting_on overlay (check log.md for the wait being set/cleared) before closing — a long-running wait often signals an under-explored dependency or coordination gap.
• Cards whose DoD had many unchecked items at closure (if the log notes this).

For each pattern that appears in ≥2 cards, report it:

Pattern: <description>
  Seen in: <title-1>, <title-2>, ...
  Root cause hypothesis: <one line>

Step 4 — Generalization candidates

A generalization card is warranted when:

• The same root cause appears in ≥3 closed cards (a recurring defect that was patched each time but never fixed architecturally).
• A cluster of ≥4 cards under the same tag all touched the same module or abstraction (signals a missing abstraction or over-busy module).
• Two or more cards were closed with "fixed incidentally" (signals the fix belonged in a shared utility).

For each identified candidate, output a proposal only:

Generalization candidate: <proposed-title>
  Evidence: <title-1>, <title-2>, <title-3>
  Pattern: <one-line description of the recurrence>
  → propose Skill(create-card) "<proposed-title>" to capture the meta-fix

Do NOT call Skill(create-card). The human decides which proposals are worth pursuing.

Step 5 — Velocity feel

Count cards closed in the last 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days:

goc --status all --json 2>/dev/null | \
  python3 -c "
import json, sys
from datetime import date, timedelta
TERMINAL = {'done', 'disproved', 'superseded'}
cards = json.load(sys.stdin)
today = date.today()
counts = {7: 0, 14: 0, 30: 0}
for c in cards:
    if c.get('status') not in TERMINAL:
        continue
    cd = c.get('closed_at', '')[:10]
    if not cd:
        continue
    delta = (today - date.fromisoformat(cd)).days
    for window in counts:
        if delta <= window:
            counts[window] += 1
print(f'7d: {counts[7]}  14d: {counts[14]}  30d: {counts[30]}')
" 2>/dev/null || true

Report as:

Velocity: <N> cards/7d · <N> cards/14d · <N> cards/30d

No benchmark is implied — this is a feel indicator, not a sprint commitment. Trend matters more than absolute number.

Output format

## Recent closures (last N)
[tag clusters]

## Failure patterns
[patterns or "None detected"]

## Generalization candidates
[proposals or "None identified"]

## Velocity
Velocity: N cards/7d · N cards/14d · N cards/30d

Total output ≤ 60 lines. Full log analysis stays in the skill's working context; only the surfaced patterns and proposals go to chat.

Cross-references

• Skill(create-card) — file a generalization card from a candidate proposal.
• Skill(audit-deck) — hunt for NEW defects in the codebase (forward-looking).
• Skill(standup) — daily read of in-flight and impeded work.
• Skill(scan-deck) — full queue browse including closed cards.