learn

name	learn
description	Preserve durable knowledge from the current conversation before context compaction or any time durable insight has surfaced. The single most important skill in the rhythm.

/learn

Purpose

Promote durable knowledge from the current conversation into the brain (brain/), the memory event stream (brain/memory/events.jsonl), or the agent's auto-memory — whichever is appropriate.

This is the gateway from session context to durable storage. It is what makes the second brain grow instead of just exist.

When to use

• Before /compact. The PreCompact hook will nudge you if /learn hasn't run in the past 30 minutes.
• After any session that produced a decision, a new fact, a synthesis, a new pattern, a new task, a working agreement.
• Whenever the conversation "would be a shame to lose."

Empty /learn runs are fine — if nothing durable surfaced, the skill says so and exits. Anti-padding bias is the rule: never invent durable knowledge to pad output.

Steps

1. Review the conversation. Scan from the most recent context backward. Look for candidates in these buckets:

   • Brain updates — new facts about an existing entity (person, project, decision, tool, etc.) that aren't yet captured. Update the relevant page.
   • New pages — entities that deserve their own identity but don't have a page yet (a new pattern, a new playbook, a new standard, a new decision, a new unknown).
   • Tasks — commitments or follow-ups from this session. Route via /create-task.
   • Memory events — small recall cues: preferences, corrections, source-of-truth notes, working rules. Append to brain/memory/events.jsonl via the appropriate memory.save mechanism. See ../../format/memory-events.md.
   • Auto-memory — working agreements between user and agent. Write to the agent's session-persistent memory store (not in this repo).
   • Skill candidates — workflows you've done manually 3+ times the same way. Flag, don't auto-create.

2. Filter. For each candidate, ask:

   • Is it durable (will matter next week)?
   • Is it not already captured (search before creating)?
   • Is it specific enough to be retrievable later?

   Drop candidates that fail any of these.

3. Write to the right layer. See ../../concepts/05-two-memory-layers.md:

   • Substantial entity → brain page.
   • Compact recall cue → memory event.
   • Agent-behavior agreement → auto-memory.

4. Provenance. Every new durable claim carries a source. See ../lib/provenance.md. For conversation-sourced knowledge, the source is conversation:session-{{DATE}}.

5. State: needs-review. New pages start at <meta name="robin:state" content="needs-review">. /remsleep Phase 3 promotes solid pages to stable later.

6. Append to changelog. Add an entry to logs/changelog.md:

   ## [YYYY-MM-DD] enrich | /learn — <one-line topic>
   
   - Updated [[page-slug]] with <what changed>.
   - Created [[new-page-slug]] (state: needs-review).
   - Saved memory event: <subject>.
   - Created task [[task-slug]].
   - Skill candidate flagged: <workflow>.
   

7. Touch the sentinel. Run touch logs/.last-learn. The PreCompact hook checks this file's mtime; if /learn ran in the past 30 minutes, the hook stays quiet. This step is mandatory.

8. Report. Summarize for the user:

   Preserved:
   - Brain updates: N
   - New pages: N (state: needs-review)
   - Tasks: N
   - Memory events: N
   - Skill candidates flagged: N
   
   Skipped: (brief notes on what you considered but didn't preserve)
   

Output shape

Concise. The user shouldn't have to read the changelog to understand what was preserved. One or two screens max.

Edge cases

• Nothing durable. Say so: "Nothing this session." Still touch logs/.last-learn.
• The conversation is huge. Don't try to capture everything. Aim for high-signal items only. Coverage isn't the goal; durability is.
• You're unsure about a candidate. Lean toward capturing as a memory event (cheaper than a page). /remsleep Phase 3 will surface it for promotion later.
• A candidate conflicts with existing knowledge. Use append-with-history (see ../../templates/constitution/learning.md). Never overwrite silently.

What /learn is NOT

• It's not /remsleep. /learn is in-conversation, fast, generous. /remsleep is end-of-day, slow, curating.
• It's not a transcript dump. It's a filter.
• It's not perfect. It's good enough. /remsleep cleans up.