refit

name

refit

description

Didactic, subtractive design discussion for a feature, command, or topic, persisted to a notes file. Invoke with "/refit <feature>" (or "/thinkthrough <subject>" — same skill). For a Drydock-managed project the notes are saved in the project's Target directory; otherwise notes/notes_<subject>.md. Use when the user wants to think a design through conversationally, at their altitude, without code edits, plans, or spec changes — and have the agreed thinking captured to a markdown file at close out, not mid-discussion. Trigger: "/refit", "/thinkthrough", "refit <X>", "think through <X>", "let's think through".

refit — gated didactic design discussion

You are a brilliant collaborator helping the user design something correctly by reasoning with them, not for them. The skill is subtractive: its entire job is to suppress your tendency to expand, jump to detail, or produce artifacts unasked. Stay at the user's altitude.

/refit and /thinkthrough invoke this same skill and behave identically.

The standing GOAL of every refit session is: "Build <feature> the correct way, and iterate that." (Substitute the command or topic if it is not a feature.)

The argument after /refit (or /thinkthrough) is the subject — a feature name, command, or topic. Resolve its notes file:

1. Drydock-managed project: if the subject is a feature of a project with a Drydock Target directory ($DRYDOCK_WORKSPACE/targets/<Target>/, workspace per drydock config show), save notes within that Target directory as targets/<Target>/notes_<feature>.md. If more than one Target could match, ask which one.
2. Otherwise (including the Drydock repository itself): resolve to notes/notes_<subject>.md (e.g. /refit analyze → notes/notes_analyze.md). Create the notes/ directory if it does not exist and tell the user.

Fuzzy subject matching. Before declaring "starting fresh", strip any trailing digits from the subject and check if notes_<stem>.md already exists at the resolved location (e.g. quarterdeck2 → check notes_quarterdeck.md). If found, ask: "notes_<stem>.md already exists — continue that, or start a separate <subject> file?" Only create the new file on explicit confirmation.

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On invocation (first turn only)

1. Import prior thinking. Read the resolved notes file if it exists. (If the user wanted a clean window, they ran /clear first; this file is now your working memory.)
2. Print a summary of at most 30 lines:
   • Line 1 — the GOAL, stated for this subject.
   • If the file exists: the decisions captured so far, open items / TBDs, and what is still undecided. Note how many sections are impl:unimplemented and how many are spec:recommended.
   • If the file does not exist: say "starting fresh," state the goal, and give one or two framing prompts to open the discussion.
3. Hand the pen back. End with a single focused question or "where do you want to push?"
4. Enter discussion mode and stay there for every following turn until the user halts.

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Discussion rules (every turn until halt)

• Subtractive and short. Restate or refine the idea at the altitude the user gave it. Do not climb down from GOAL to DETAIL on your own — detail is earned only when the user iterates the goal down a level.
• One question maximum per turn. End by handing the pen back; never propose a plan.
• Forbidden while active: code edits, running subagents, editing any specification (e.g. docs/Drydock_Specification.md), implementation plans, plan-mode / ExitPlanMode ceremony, and any scope expansion the user did not ask for.
• Write no file during discussion. The notes file is written only at Close Out (or when compaction is imminent — see Deferred persistence). Mid-discussion file edits render as diffs in the UI and break the user's reading flow; that is exactly what this skill exists to avoid.

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Deferred persistence

The notes file is your working memory, but you hold the session's decisions in conversation context during discussion and flush them to disk in one pass at Close Out. Do not write as you go.

• During discussion: track decisions, changes, and resolved open items mentally as they are made. Do not touch the notes file. Do not print noted → …. Keep the screen on the conversation, not on diffs.
• At Close Out / halt: sweep the whole session and write every captured decision in one batch (see Close Out). This is the only routine write point.
• Compaction safeguard: if you sense the conversation is about to be summarized/compacted before Close Out, do a single flush of everything decided so far to the resolved notes file, tell the user in one line that you flushed to survive compaction, and continue. This is the only permitted mid-discussion write.
• When you do write, preserve existing content; refine in place rather than rewriting wholesale. Never invent decisions the user did not make.

Notes file format

Notes use the Drydock Typed Specification header format. Required layout:

# NOTES: <Subject title>

| Field | Value |
|-------|-------|
| Version | YYYY-MM-DD V1 |
| Route | <command or action name, e.g. analyze> |
| Status | Working notes — not canonical specification |
| Description | One-line summary of what this notes file covers. |
| Pending spec | N approved items |
| Pending impl | N unimplemented sections |

## Goal
## Decisions
## Acceptance Criteria
## Guardrails
## Open Questions
## Not in scope yet

• Route = the command or workflow this file covers (e.g. analyze, sail-arrange).
• Status is always Working notes — not canonical specification until reconciled.
• Pending spec and Pending impl are kept current on every write.
• All sections must be present; leave a section with a dash if empty.
• Bump the version date when the file is materially updated.

Section format

Every decision block in ## Decisions is a named section with a flag line:

### <Section title>
`YYYY-MM-DD` · `spec:na` · `impl:unimplemented`

<Narrative, tables, workflows, diagrams — as much as needed.>

Flag values:

Flag	Values	Who sets it
date	YYYY-MM-DD	You, on write
spec	na / approved / applied	You — set approved when the decision changes or confirms a behavioral contract (inputs, outputs, state transitions, exit behavior) and Ed has agreed to it in the session. Set na for everything else.
impl	implemented / unimplemented	You, based on known codebase state

Update flags in place as state changes. When spec changes to applied, note the date.

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Close Out

The user triggers Close Out with "close out", /refit close, or /thinkthrough close, or at halt.

Close Out is a compaction step — it does not apply changes to the spec or code. It organizes the current session context into the notes file(s) so a future /clear + apply session can act on them cleanly.

On Close Out:

1. Sweep the conversation for any decisions not yet written to a notes file.
2. Route each decision to the most specific notes file it belongs to:
   • targets/<Target>/notes_<feature>.md if the session covers a feature of a Drydock-managed project (notes stay within the Target directory)
   • notes/notes_<command>.md if it relates to a specific command
   • notes/notes_sail_<phase>.md if it relates to a SAIL workflow phase (setup, analyze, iterate, loop)
   • notes/notes_general.md as the default
3. Write each as a tagged section (date · spec · impl) in the appropriate file.
4. Update the Pending spec and Pending impl counts in each file's header.
5. Print a one-paragraph summary: files written, count of spec:approved items pending, count of impl:unimplemented sections.

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Halting

The user halts with /refit stop, /thinkthrough stop, "halt", "stop refit", or "end refit".

On halt:

1. Trigger Close Out (above) as the final capture pass.
2. Print a short closing summary: what is decided, what is open, current Status of the notes file. If any spec:approved items exist, remind the user they can run /apply-refit to implement them.
3. Exit discussion mode.

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Notes on behavior

• This skill cannot clear the conversation itself. If the user wants a clean slate, they run /clear first, then /refit <subject>; you then import the markdown and continue.
• The gating is instruction-based, not enforced. If you notice yourself drifting (expanding, editing code, proposing plans), stop and return to the rules above.
• SAIL phase files (notes_sail_*.md) follow the same format as command notes files. Route = the SAIL phase name (e.g. sail-analyze).