# Prompt Retro

> Self-audit of Claude Code chat history — mine transcripts for repeated prompts, corrections, and friction, then propose skills/hooks/setup fixes. Use for 'prompt retro', 'run the chat-history audit', 'what patterns are in my prompting', or monthly.

- Skill: `dylanpulver/prompt-retro` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 3 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add dylanpulver/prompt-retro`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/dylanpulver/prompt-retro/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- Author: dylanpulver (https://skillmd.com/u/dylanpulver)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/dylanpulver/prompt-retro

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# prompt-retro

The meta-loop: the setup studies its own usage and proposes its next improvement. Born from a
full-history audit (thousands of human prompts) that found rituals were being codified at
rep ~25 instead of rep ~3. This skill makes that audit cheap and recurring, so the gap shrinks
to one retro cycle.

## State

In this skill dir:
- `retro-log.md` — one section per run: date, window, lens, metrics, proposals. Read it first;
  the current run's window starts where the last one ended.
- `briefs/YYYY-MM-DD.md` — the FULL brief of every past run, exactly as delivered. **Read the
  last 2-3 briefs before writing anything**: they are the record of what the user has already been
  told. A finding repeated verbatim across briefs is noise; either drop it, or escalate it
  explicitly ("third retro in a row — this isn't getting fixed, here's why I think that is").
  Save the current run's brief here before surfacing it.

## Protocol

1. **Extract.** `python3 "$SKILL_DIR/scripts/extract_prompts.py" <scratch-dir>/digests --since <last-run-date>`
   — walks every `~/.claude*` config dir, keeps only human-typed prompts (drops task-notifications,
   hook/judge prompts, harness runs), writes one digest per project with session headers
   (interrupts, slash-commands) and timestamped prompts.
2. **Fan out analysis agents** (one per major project digest + one quantitative cross-cutting pass), each reporting:
   - recurring task types prompted by hand (with counts + verbatim examples)
   - friction: corrections ("no,/wrong/still/why did you"), interrupts, re-sends, stalls
   - context/boilerplate retyped across sessions
   - **rep-2 violations**: any instruction/doctrine typed ≥2 times → immediate codification candidate
   - go-signal tax: bare "continue/lets roll" counts (loops that should be /loop or background agents)
   - secrets pasted in chat (flag for vault + rotation)
   The quantitative pass: slash-command league table, correction rate per project, prompt prefixes, nudge counts.
3. **Rotate the lens.** Each run ALSO takes one fresh angle the previous runs didn't — pick the next
   from this wheel (recorded per run in retro-log.md) or invent a better one:
   delegation efficiency → verification & rework loops → comms quality → security hygiene →
   skill adoption (are built skills firing? repetition decay per skill) → session structure
   (stalls, compactions, parallel-chat collisions) → model/cost usage → what-changed-this-window.
   The standing metrics stay every run; the lens is where new findings come from. Once the wheel
   has been fully walked, inventing a new lens is REQUIRED, not optional — good sources: a lens
   suggested by last run's anomalies, a mental-model concept applied to the workflow, or the
   inverse of a previous lens (e.g. "where did Claude over-verify" after "under-verify").
3b. **Freshness gate.** Diff your draft findings against the last 2-3 briefs (see State). Every
   finding gets one label: NEW (this window), PERSISTING (said before — include only with a
   why-it-persists analysis), or RESOLVED (celebrate it: proof the loop works). A brief that is
   mostly PERSISTING items without escalation is a failed run — dig for what's new instead.
4. **Synthesize** into a ranked brief: (a) skill/hook/setup candidates by frequency × pain, each with
   verbatim evidence; (b) habit deltas vs the last retro (did correction rate drop? nudge tax? did
   proposed skills get built and used?); (c) the lens findings; (d) the 2-3 things to build this cycle.
5. **Close the loop:** append the run to retro-log.md (date, window, lens used, metrics, proposals).
6. **Surface it:** deliver the brief however the user prefers (email tooling if wired up,
   subject "Prompt Retro YYYY-MM-DD — <lens>"). Otherwise write it to
   `~/Desktop/prompt-retro-YYYY-MM-DD.md` and fire a macOS notification:
   `osascript -e 'display notification "retro brief on Desktop" with title "Prompt Retro"'`.

## Judging improvement between runs

The score that matters is **repetition decay**: a ritual flagged last retro should appear near-zero
this retro (because a skill absorbed it). Rituals that persist across two retros despite a built
skill mean the skill isn't triggering — audit its description, don't build another one.

## Baseline

Your first full audit sets the baseline: correction rate per project, go-signal tax (share of bare
"continue" prompts), and share of raw transcript "user" turns that are machine traffic. Record it
in retro-log.md and beat those numbers on subsequent runs.