Sprint Retro

Sprint Retro

Synthesize a draft Sprint Retro from everything already in the vault — daily standups, weekly recaps, the sprint planning note, and the previous retro — so the live retro starts from a populated document instead of a blank template.

Usage

• /sprint-retro — Infer the current/most-recent sprint from the prior retro + cadence.
• /sprint-retro <N> — Draft the retro for sprint number N.
• /sprint-retro <dates> — Use an explicit sprint window (e.g. 2026-05-19..2026-06-02).

Date Filtering

See date-filter for date-range syntax and parsing.

Output format (mandatory)

Mirror followup-todos — the retro is a bullet document, not a task list:

• Never insert Obsidian Tasks / checkbox lines: no - [ ], - [x], - [-], - [?] — including in the Action items section.
• Never append Tasks date tokens (📅, 🛫, ⏳). Write dates inline in prose / ISO (e.g. "by 2026-06-01").
• A single trailing priority emoji (🔺 ⏫ 🔼 🔽) as plain text is fine when it reads naturally.
• Always use plain list items: - Description…. Wikilinks ([[@Name]], [[Recap …]]), [PROJ-123](https://…) links, and bold are encouraged.

File naming convention (mandatory)

Sprint artifacts in Meetings/Engineering/Scrum/ follow a single pattern — keep it consistent:

• Retro: Sprint <N> Retro <YYYY-MM-DD>.md (date = sprint end date / retro day).
• Planning: Sprint <N> Planning <YYYY-MM-DD>.md (date = planning meeting day).

Never leave an undated Sprint N Retro.md or a <Team> - Sprint Planning … variant. If you encounter one while gathering context, flag it and offer to git mv it into the canonical form (updating any [[wikilinks]] that reference the old name).

Workflow

Step 1: Determine sprint number and window

1. Verify the current date (see Date Verification in skill-conventions): date +%F.
2. List Meetings/Engineering/Scrum/Sprint * Retro *.md to find the prior retro (Sprint <N-1> Retro <date>).
3. Derive this sprint:
   • Number = prior + 1 (or the explicit <N> arg).
   • Window = the day after the prior retro's end through this sprint's retro day. Retros land on a biweekly cadence (same weekday, ~14 days apart) — extrapolate, then sanity-check against the planning note's date and the scrum dailies present.
4. Confirm the resolved sprint number and start..end window with the user if anything is ambiguous (missing prior retro, irregular cadence, mid-sprint run).

Step 2: Gather sources

See vault-context. Gather in parallel:

Prefer qmd over grep for discovery (see qmd). Resolve names to [[@Name]] via people-resolver.

Step 3: Synthesize

Distill the gathered material into the retro sections, attributing each bullet to its source(s) with wikilinks (e.g. ([[Recap 2026-05-31]], [[Meetings/Engineering/Scrum/2026-05-28]])). Enrich bullets with Jira links ([PROJ-1234](https://your-org.atlassian.net/browse/PROJ-1234)) where a ticket is referenced.

• Went Well / Start doing — shipped tickets, milestones, unblocks, demos.
• Didn't Go Well / Stop doing — misses, recurring blockers, process friction, deadline pressure. Note cross-sprint patterns.
• Keep doing / Shoutouts — one bullet per person, citing their concrete contributions. Only include people with evidence in the sources; don't invent contributions.
• Discussion/Proposals — open questions, decisions to make, timelines.
• Action items — concrete next steps (plain bullets, see output rules), including carried-over items from the prior retro.

Step 4: Compose the document

Base structure on Templates/Sprint Retro.md, with these additions used by recent retros:

---
Notes:
created: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS±HH:MM
Participants: "[[+Engineering]]"
---

# Sprint <N> Retro — <YYYY-MM-DD>

**Sprint:** <N> · **<start>** → **<end>**

Planning context: [[Sprint <N> Planning <date>]]

> [!info] Draft synthesized from the vault
> Bullets below are distilled from **Scrum dailies** (`<start>`–`<end>`), the recaps covering this window, and the **[[Sprint <N> Planning <date>]]** commitments. Adjust after the live retro or paste a Confluence URL into `Notes:`.

### ▶️ Start doing / Went Well

- …

### 🛑 Stop doing / Didn't Go Well

- …

### 🙌 Keep doing / Shoutouts

- **[[@Name]]** — …

## Discussion/Proposals

- …

## Action items

- … 🔼
- Carry: … ⏫

## Sources (vault index)

| Kind | Notes |
| --- | --- |
| Recaps | [[Recap …]] (range), [[Recap …]] (range) |
| Scrum DS | [[Meetings/Engineering/Scrum/<start>]] … [[Meetings/Engineering/Scrum/<end>]] |
| Grooming / forums | [[Sprint <N> Planning <date>]] |
| Prior retro | [[Sprint <N-1> Retro <date>]] |

Leave Notes: empty for the user to paste the Confluence retro URL. Never set modified: manually (Obsidian manages it).

Step 5: Present and confirm

Show the draft to the user before saving. Let them adjust bullets, attributions, shoutouts, and action items.

Step 6: Save

Save to Meetings/Engineering/Scrum/Sprint <N> Retro <end-date>.md — see the naming convention above. If a retro for the sprint already exists, ask whether to overwrite.

Step 7: Offer to commit

See /commit.

Important Notes

• Draft, not gospel — the output is a synthesis to seed the live retro; flag it as such in the [!info] callout and expect the user to revise.
• Evidence-only shoutouts — only credit contributions that appear in the sources; omit team members with no traceable activity rather than guessing.
• Cadence is a heuristic — biweekly same-weekday is the norm, but planning/retro days drift; always cross-check the derived window against the actual scrum dailies and planning-note date.
• Naming consistency — if you touch sibling planning/retro files with non-canonical names, normalize them via git mv and fix referencing wikilinks (see the convention section).
• No checkboxes — this is a discussion artifact; keep it bullets-only per the output rules, matching /followup-todos.
• Timezone — use the vault owner's offset from USER.md. See skill-conventions Project Context.