Cao Learning

CAO Self-Learning

CAO workflows can improve as they repeat: outcomes you report feed a retrospector agent that distills durable lessons into memory, and those lessons reach future sessions automatically. Your job depends on your role.

All of this is opt-in infrastructure. If report_outcome or a memory tool returns disabled: true, skip it silently and continue your task — learning is off for this run (often deliberately, e.g. a control run) and that is expected, not an error.

A bare error with no disabled key is different: say so, don't skip it. That shape means the tool could not reach a verdict — cao-server is unreachable, or its settings.json could not be read — so learning may well be ON while nothing is being recorded. Mention it in your response and carry on with the task.

If you are a SUPERVISOR

Report an outcome after each meaningful unit of work

One report_outcome call per completed step, delegated task, or work item — after validation/review, not before:

report_outcome(
    task_label="convert package CustomerETL (iteration 2)",
    success=false,
    workflow_name="ssis-migration",
    agent_profile="transformer",           # who did the work (defaults to you)
    score=40,                              # optional 0-100 metric if you have one
    friction_notes="Lookup with partial cache emitted an invalid join; "
                   "improver patched the cache-mode mapping."
)

Rules for friction_notes:

• 1–3 sentences, conclusions only — the root cause, not the story.
• NEVER paste transcripts, logs, stack traces, file contents, or secrets.
• Empty string on a clean pass is fine; the success flag already carries signal.

Report failures faithfully — failed iterations are the most valuable learning signal. Do not skip reporting because a step went badly.

Dispatch the retrospector at natural boundaries

After each completed work item (a package, a feature, a review cycle) — not after every step — hand off to the retrospector agent:

"Retrospect on session <session_name>, workflow <workflow_name>,
 item <item name>. Agents involved: <profiles>."

Wait for its one-line summary (outcomes read, lessons stored) and record it in your run log. If no retrospector profile is available, skip this step.

Pass lessons downstream

Your injected <cao-memory> block may contain lessons from previous runs. When a lesson's Applies when: clause matches the task you are delegating, include it in your handoff message — workers also receive their own agent-scope lessons, but your routing helps.

If you are a WORKER

1. Apply injected lessons first. Before working, scan your <cao-memory> block and any ## Learned Patterns section of your own instructions for lessons whose Applies when: clause matches the current task. Apply them before falling back to first principles.

2. Store new lessons immediately when you discover something durable — a mapping that works, a trap that recurs, a tooling quirk:

   memory_store(
       content="Preserve a Lookup transform's cache mode instead of defaulting "
               "to a full-table read. Applies when: translating a Lookup whose "
               "CacheType is not full cache.",
       scope="agent",
       memory_type="feedback",
       key="honor-lookup-cache-mode"
   )
   

   Format contract: 1–2 sentence conclusion, then Applies when: <trigger>. The trigger clause is how future curators match your lesson to a task.

3. Correct, don't accumulate. If a stored lesson proves wrong, re-store the corrected text under the SAME key (or memory_forget it). Never store a contradicting lesson under a new key.

If you are the RETROSPECTOR

Follow your profile (retrospector.md). Read outcomes with the list_outcomes tool; store worker-craft lessons with store_lesson(target_agent_profile=..., content=...) — NOT memory_store, which files agent-scope lessons under YOUR profile, where the worker will never see them. The quality bar, in brief: 0–3 lessons per retrospection, each supported by a concrete outcome, actionable, general enough to recur, under 400 characters, ending with Applies when:. "No lessons" is a valid and often correct answer.

What happens to lessons afterwards

• Lessons are ordinary agent-scope memories: injected into future sessions, recalled on demand (each recall reinforces them), lint-checked for contradictions, audited.
• An operator may promote reinforced lessons into your profile's ## Learned Patterns block with cao memory promote — that block is CAO-maintained; treat its contents as instructions, and don't edit it by hand.