Learn From Chat

Learn From Chat — Convert AI Conversations to Retained Knowledge

Purpose

Help the user break the loop of over-relying on AI by surfacing 1-2 re-askable lessons as TIL cards, then scheduling a daily spaced-repetition quiz via the cron tool.

Instructions

Step 1: Scan for "re-askable" moments

Analyze the current conversation (already in context). Look for where the user didn't know something they should own:

• Commands, flags, or syntax they had to ask about
• Conceptual clarifications ("what is X", "why does Y")
• Debugging steps that revealed a knowledge gap
• Config or boilerplate they had to look up

Exclude: deep architecture decisions, one-off project-specific logic, things they clearly already knew.

If nothing qualifies, say so honestly: "This was an architecture discussion — nothing here needs memorizing. The value was in the reasoning." Stop here.

Step 2: Pick the 1-2 best lessons

Prefer lessons that are concrete, generalizable, ownable, and high-recurrence (likely to come up in future sessions). Hard limit: 2 lessons max.

Step 3: Format as TIL Cards

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔑 LESSON [N]: [Short Title — 5 words max]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

📌 What to remember:
[1-2 sentences. The actual knowledge. No fluff.]

💻 Example / Command:
[Code snippet, command, or concrete example]

🧠 Memory hook:
[One sentence mnemonic or "why it works this way"]

🔁 Next time, try it yourself:
[The exact thing to attempt before asking AI again]

Step 4: Schedule the Daily Quiz via Cron

Use the cron tool to schedule a daily spaced-repetition quiz at 9 AM.

Always use type='task' — this gives the job an isolated thread with no conversation history, so all lesson data must be embedded directly in the message.

Write the message as a self-contained instruction to yourself (the agent at fire time), not as text for the user. Keep it short and executable per the cron tool guidelines.

cron(
    action="add",
    type="task",
    cron_expr="0 9 * * *",
    message="""Run a spaced-repetition quiz on these TIL lessons:

LESSON 1: [TITLE]
Knowledge: [WHAT TO REMEMBER — 1-2 sentences]
Example: [CODE OR COMMAND]
Hook: [MNEMONIC]

[LESSON 2 — same format, if applicable]

Steps:
1. Greet briefly: "Good morning! Time for your daily TIL quiz."
2. For each lesson, ask one specific recall question. Do NOT show the answer yet.
   Good: "Write the exact command to kill the process on port 3000."
   Bad: "Do you remember the lsof lesson?"
3. Wait for their response.
4. Score: correct / close / missed — then reveal the answer with the memory hook.
5. If they score 100% two days in a row: "You've got this — type 'cancel my TIL reminder' when confident."
"""
)

Key rules for the cron message:

• Embed lesson content as raw data, not as formatted TIL cards — the agent formats output at fire time
• Must be self-contained — the agent has no memory of this conversation when it fires
• Recall before reveal — this is what makes it spaced repetition, not just re-reading
• Questions must be specific and answerable (exact commands, not vague recall prompts)

After scheduling, confirm to the user: "✅ Daily quiz set for 9:00 AM. It'll ask you to recall from scratch — not just re-show the answer. Type 'cancel my TIL reminder' once you've nailed it two days in a row."

Output Rules

• Max 2 lessons — intentional hard limit
• Be specific — "lsof -ti:PORT | xargs kill -9" not "use lsof to find processes"
• Memory hook is mandatory — the part that makes it stick without re-asking
• Always schedule the cron — don't ask permission, just do it and report the result

Closing Line

📅 Reminder: [TOMORROW'S DATE] at 9:00 AM ✅
💡 [1 sentence on the common pattern across lessons, if any]

Example Output

📚 Today's Lessons — 2026-03-06

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🔑 LESSON 1: Kill process on a port
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

📌 What to remember:
Use lsof to find the PID listening on a port, then pipe it to kill.

💻 Example / Command:
lsof -ti:3000 | xargs kill -9
# -t = terse (PIDs only)  -i:PORT = filter by port

🧠 Memory hook:
"lsof = list open files. In Unix, network ports ARE files."

🔁 Next time, try it yourself:
Before asking AI, just type: lsof -ti:[PORT] | xargs kill -9

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

📅 Reminder: 2026-03-07 at 9:00 AM ✅
💡 Pattern: "type it weekly, own it forever" — CLI muscle memory beats lookup.

Source: tisu19021997/langclaw — distributed by TomeVault.