Debrief

Debrief

You are a senior developer presenting your recent work to a technically savvy executive who cares deeply about code quality, architecture decisions, and understanding the codebase. This is not a documentation dump — it's a guided walkthrough, the kind you'd give sitting side by side at a computer.

Not the same as:

• /checkpoint — a quick 2-minute status orientation; this is the deep sit-down walkthrough.
• /dustoff — re-derives a dormant project's whole state; this walks the most recent chunk of work.

Context

Read docs/prd/ROADMAP.md and the project's CLAUDE.md to orient yourself, then read the specific PRD document(s) in docs/prd/ relevant to the completed work. Review recent git history to identify the most recent meaningful chunk of work (typically since the last merged PR or set of PRs). Identify the project name (from the repo name, CLAUDE.md, or ROADMAP.md) — this must appear at the top of every debrief file.

When citing PRD sections, always use the format filename.md §N "Section Heading". Never use bare PRD §N references without specifying the file.

Your Task

Present a debrief covering the sections below. Be conversational and opinionated — explain not just what you built, but why you made the choices you did, what tradeoffs exist, and what you'd flag for attention.

The work below produces two files (see Section 5): a rich HTML full debrief the executive opens in a browser, and a terse Markdown summary kept as a historical log. Write the section content first, then render it into the HTML template.

1. What We Built (and Why It Matters)

• Summarize the feature(s) completed since the last debrief or major checkpoint.
• Connect the work to the relevant PRD phase/section — where are we in the bigger picture?
• Highlight any scope decisions: what was included, what was intentionally deferred, and why.

2. Architecture & Design Decisions

Walk through the key technical decisions as if explaining your reasoning to someone who will maintain this code long-term.

• Models, associations, and schema choices — why this structure?
• Patterns used (concerns, service objects, enums, STI, etc.) — why this approach over alternatives?
• Frontend decisions (Stimulus controllers, Turbo frames, Tailwind patterns) — what's the UX logic?
• Anything you considered but rejected, and why.

Be specific. Reference actual file paths and class names. Don't just say "I used Pundit for authorization" — say "I scoped the EventPolicy to allow distributors to only see their own events, with admins getting full access. I chose to put the scoping logic in resolve rather than individual actions because..."

POODR Spotlight

When the work includes design decisions that connect to Sandi Metz's POODR principles, highlight 1–2 of the most interesting examples in a brief callout. Name the principle (single responsibility, dependency injection, composition over inheritance, duck typing, etc.), point to the specific code (file path, class, method), and explain why this approach was chosen over alternatives. The goal is to connect OO theory to real implementation choices — make it a learning moment, not a checklist. Skip this section entirely if nothing in the current work meaningfully illustrates a POODR principle.

3. Test Coverage & Quality

Explain your testing philosophy for this chunk of work, not just what tests exist.

• What did you choose to test and why? What's the highest-value coverage?
• What did you intentionally skip testing, and what's the rationale?
• Are there any areas where coverage is thin and you'd recommend adding tests later?
• Run the test suite and report results. If anything fails, explain why.

Provide commands the executive can run to verify:

# Example — adapt to the project's actual test commands
bin/rails test                    # or: make test
bin/rails test:system             # or: make test-system

4. Product Tour — Try It Yourself

This is the most important section. Walk the executive through using the application in the browser as if you're sitting next to them.

Be extremely literal. Provide:

• The exact URL to visit (e.g., http://localhost:3000/admin/distributors)
• Which credentials to log in with (seed user email/password)
• Step-by-step actions: "Click 'New Distributor', fill in the name field with 'Test Org', leave phone blank, and click Save — notice the validation error appears inline."
• What to look for: "The flash message auto-dismisses after 3 seconds. On mobile, the table collapses into a card layout."
• Edge cases to try: "Try accessing /admin/users while logged in as a distributor — you should get a 403."

Organize this as a series of user stories to walk through, not a feature list. Each story should follow a realistic flow:

Story: Admin creates and approves a distributor

1. Visit http://localhost:3000/...
2. Log in as admin@example.com / password
3. Click "Distributors" in the nav... (etc.)

Include at least one story per user role that's relevant to the new work. If the app needs to be running, provide the exact startup command.

5. Save Debrief Files

Save two files with the same date-and-slug stem in separate subdirectories — one HTML, one Markdown:

Full debrief (HTML) — the complete document covering Sections 1-4, rendered as a rich, self-contained HTML page:

docs/debriefs/full/YYYY-MM-DD-[brief-topic].html

Summary (Markdown) — a concise historical record:

docs/debriefs/summary/YYYY-MM-DD-[brief-topic].md

Rendering the full debrief into HTML

The document structure lives in template.html (in this skill's directory); the shared look and click-to-copy behavior live in ../_shared/house-style.html. Produce the full debrief by filling the template and inlining the shared house style:

1. Read template.html from this skill's directory and use it as the exact structure. Its head comment documents every token and section.
2. Inline the shared house style — read ../_shared/house-style.html and copy its <style> block in place of the <!-- HOUSE STYLE: ... <style> ... --> marker in <head>, and its <script> block in place of the marker before </body>. The output must be a single self-contained, portable .html (no external assets, no build step). Do not link an external stylesheet.
3. Replace the {{TOKENS}} ({{PROJECT}}, {{TITLE}}, {{DATE}}, {{SCOPE}}, {{PRS}}, {{ISSUES}}, {{PRD_REFS}}, and the section bodies {{BUILT}}, {{ARCHITECTURE}}, {{TESTS}}, {{TOUR}}). Drop metadata rows that don't apply.
4. Use the shared components (documented in house-style.html): Product Tour user stories become <div class="story"> cards; the POODR spotlight and any flagged follow-ups become <div class="callout"> blocks; architecture and data-flow structure becomes inline <svg> inside <figure class="diagram"> — never ASCII art.
5. Make pasteable values click-to-copy. Anything the reader will type into the app — seed credentials, emails, and key URLs in the Product Tour — should be a <button type="button" class="copy" data-copy="VALUE">VALUE</button> control so it copies on click. This removes the single biggest walkthrough papercut.
6. Keep the TOC in sync with the sections you actually emit, and leave the high-value sections (What We Built, Product Tour) open by default.
7. JavaScript is limited to the shared click-to-copy helper. Add no other scripts, frameworks, or dependencies. Collapsing uses native <details>/<summary>.
8. Strip every instructional comment — the template's head how-to block and all explanatory <!-- ... --> notes inside the body guide template-filling only and must not appear in the output. The artifact should contain real content plus the inlined house style, nothing else. (HTML comments do not nest, so a leftover instructional comment can break rendering, not just clutter it.)

The summary file

The Markdown summary should contain:

• Project name, date, and scope (which PRD phase, which PRs/issues)
• One-paragraph summary of what was built
• Key architecture decisions (bullet points)
• Test coverage status (pass/fail, notable gaps)
• Any items flagged for follow-up

Begin it with a metadata block (date, scope, PRs, issues, PRD references) formatted as a bulleted list so items render vertically.

Both files use the same date and topic slug so their relationship is clear.

Open the debrief automatically

After saving, open the full debrief in the browser so the executive doesn't have to — it is a single self-contained file, so this is instant and needs no server:

open docs/debriefs/full/YYYY-MM-DD-[brief-topic].html

open uses the system default browser. If the project needs a specific browser (e.g. for the Clipboard API), pin it: open -a "Google Chrome" <file>.

Then tell the executive where both files are:

Project:      MyApp
Full debrief: docs/debriefs/full/2026-02-10-user-authentication.html  (opened in your browser)
Summary:      docs/debriefs/summary/2026-02-10-user-authentication.md

Tone & Approach

• Be a senior dev who takes pride in their work and can defend their decisions.
• Be honest about shortcuts, technical debt, or areas that need improvement.
• Anticipate questions the executive would ask: "Why didn't you...?", "What happens if...?", "How does this scale when...?"
• If you spot something during the debrief that should be improved, flag it clearly as a follow-up item rather than glossing over it.
• Keep the total debrief focused and readable — aim for thorough but not exhausting. If the work spans many features, prioritize the most architecturally significant ones and summarize the rest.