Session Reflect

Session Reflect

Capture evidence-based learnings from the current session (or a clearly identified recent session) and propose targeted, atomic improvements to existing documentation, skills, or core instructions. There is no separate learnings store: improvements are applied directly to the best existing target(s).

This skill is a post-step that closes the loop after /fact-find, /plan-feature, /re-plan, and /build-feature.

Operating Mode

REFLECTION ONLY

Allowed: read relevant files, analyze the session timeline, extract evidence, draft proposals, and (only if approved) update the target files.

Not allowed:

• Creating new "learnings" files or a parallel knowledge base
• Making any changes without explicit user approval
• Bundling unrelated improvements into a single proposal
• Speculative "best practice" additions without session evidence

Inputs

At trigger time, establish the minimum context (without derailing the user):

What session/workstream are we reflecting on? (e.g., "the feature build we just completed", "the re-plan for TASK-07", "the briefing request")

Where is the authoritative artifact?

• Plan: docs/plans/<feature-slug>-plan.md
• Fact-find: docs/plans/<feature-slug>-fact-find.md
• Relevant skill: .claude/skills/<skill>/SKILL.md
• Core instructions: CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, etc.

If the session is ambiguous, ask one clarifying question to anchor it; otherwise proceed.

When to Trigger (Semi-Automatic)

Prompt the user to run reflection when any of these occurred:

Planning pipeline signals

• A task was forced into /re-plan due to <80% confidence.
• A build stop occurred due to confidence regression or unexpected blast radius.
• Plan task boundaries proved inaccurate (needed new files or new dependencies).
• Acceptance criteria or test plan was missing/insufficient and had to be invented mid-build.

Execution signals

• A validation failure was non-obvious and required investigation.
• The agent made an incorrect assumption that the user corrected.
• A recurring pattern was rediscovered (re-learning).
• A "gotcha" or edge case caused rework or delay.

Documentation/skill adequacy signals

• Skill instructions were followed but still led to wasted steps.
• The user asked for the same clarification more than once across sessions.
• Repo conventions were unclear and had to be inferred from history.

Do not trigger

• Routine work that proceeded smoothly with no notable friction
• Pure preference changes without evidence of cost or error
• "Nice-to-have" ideas not tied to session outcomes

Progressive Disclosure Layers

Use the smallest-layer change that solves the problem.

Layer selection rules

• If the learning is only relevant to one command's workflow → L1
• If it's specific to a subsystem/module → L2
• Use L0 only when it reduces repeated failure across many tasks/features.

Evidence Standards (Hard Requirements)

Acceptable evidence (must include at least one per proposal)

Pick from:

Quantitative cost: minutes lost, number of retries, number of CI failures, number of re-plans, number of times user corrected behavior

Concrete session artifacts: failing command output, specific error message, impacted file paths, plan task IDs, decision points recorded, discovered dependency chain

Format requirements

• L0/L1 proposals must include quantified impact (measured or explicitly estimated).
• L2 proposals must include session evidence (paths, errors, decision points).

Not acceptable

• "Might be useful"
• "Best practice suggests"
• Theoretical edge cases not observed in the session

If you do not have enough evidence, do not propose. Instead:

• ask the user for the missing measurement ("Was this a 5-minute hiccup or a 45-minute derail?"), or
• defer entirely.

Workflow

1) Identify

Describe succinctly:

• What happened (symptom)
• What was missing (root cause)
• What would have prevented it (proposed documentation/skill change)

2) Classify

Assign:

• Layer (L0/L1/L2)
• Target file path
• Change type: Add / Clarify / Strengthen Gate / Remove / Reorder

3) Draft (atomic proposals only)

Produce 1–3 proposals max per reflection run, each independently approvable.

If there are more than 3, prioritize by quantified impact and recurrence likelihood.

4) Present for approval (mandatory)

For each proposal, present a "proposal card" including:

• Layer and target
• Evidence (quantified and/or artifact-based)
• Current state (brief excerpt or summary; avoid long quotes)
• Proposed change in the exact target-file format
• Expected impact
• Risk of change (e.g., over-constraining, false positives)
• Approval question (Yes/No)

5) Apply or discard

If approved: update the target file(s) and show what changed (diff-style or clear before/after).

If rejected: do nothing persistent. Do not argue; optionally ask what would make it acceptable (one question max).

Proposal Card Template

Use this exact structure when presenting changes:

### REF-01: <short title>
- **Layer:** L1 (Skills)
- **Target:** `.claude/skills/<skill>/SKILL.md`
- **Change type:** Strengthen Gate
- **Evidence:**
  - Quantified: <e.g., "~25 minutes lost chasing failing tests caused by missing 'baseline check' step">
  - Artifacts: <e.g., "CI failure: <error>; discovered in TASK-04 build notes; files: ...">
- **Current state (summary):** <1–2 sentences>
- **Proposed change (draft):**
  <insert text block or diff-style snippet>
- **Expected impact:** <how it prevents recurrence>
- **Risk / tradeoff:** <what could get worse>
- **Approve to apply?** (Yes/No)

Integration With the Planning Pipeline

When reflecting on work that involved your planning skills, prefer these targets:

• If the issue was unclear intent / insufficient initial user context → update /fact-find intake gates (L1).
• If the issue was task confidence inflation or missing evidence → update /plan-feature confidence rubric / evidence requirements (L1).
• If the issue was mid-build surprises → update /build-feature stopping conditions and preflight/baseline checks (L1).
• If the issue was tasks under-specified (missing acceptance/test/rollout) → update /re-plan plan-repair requirements (L1).
• If the issue was subsystem-specific (e.g., auth edge case) → update a domain doc (L2), and optionally reference it from the plan template.

Anti-Patterns (Explicitly Forbidden)

• Proposing changes without session evidence
• Creating separate learnings files (e.g., learnings.md, notes.md, postmortem.md) that are not already part of the repo's established docs structure
• Bundling unrelated learnings into a single proposal
• Proposing L0 changes for subsystem/domain-specific issues
• Skipping user approval
• Turning reflection into new planning or implementation work

Completion Messages

Use one of the following:

If proposals were approved and applied:

"Reflection complete. Applied approved improvement(s) to . No separate learnings files created."

If proposals were presented but not approved:

"Reflection complete. Proposed improvement(s); none applied due to lack of approval."

If insufficient evidence:

"Reflection skipped. I do not have sufficient session evidence to justify a durable documentation/skill change."