Learning Task 3: Documenting What You Build

Learning Task 3: Documenting What You Build

Skill: nav-task Time: 4-5 minutes Difficulty: Beginner

Why This Matters

Task documentation captures WHAT you build - implementation plans, technical decisions, and outcomes. This becomes your project's knowledge base. Future sessions can load relevant task docs instead of re-explaining everything.

The Task

Step 1: Create a Task Document

DO THIS NOW:

Type: "Create task doc for learning-feature"

Step 2: Observe What Happens

WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN:

1. Task ID generated (TASK-XX format)
2. Template created in .agent/tasks/
3. Navigator index updated with reference

You should see:

✅ Task document created!

Task: TASK-XX-learning-feature
File: .agent/tasks/TASK-XX-learning-feature.md

Template includes:
- Problem Statement
- Implementation Plan
- Technical Decisions
- Success Criteria

Fill this in as you implement the feature.

Step 3: Review the Template

DO THIS:

Ask: "Show me the task document that was created"

The template has sections for:

• Context: Why this feature exists
• Implementation Plan: Steps to build it
• Technical Decisions: Architecture choices
• Files Modified: What changed
• Success Criteria: How to verify completion

Step 4: Understand the Workflow

Task docs have two phases:

1. Planning: Create doc when starting feature
2. Archiving: Update doc when feature complete

The archive captures what was ACTUALLY built vs what was planned.

Validation

This task is complete when:

• Task doc created with "Create task doc for learning-feature"
• File exists in .agent/tasks/
• Template structure visible

Automatic check: File .agent/tasks/*learning-feature*.md exists.

Pro Tip

Task docs answer: "What did we build and why?"

When returning to a feature months later:

1. nav-start loads the index
2. Find relevant TASK-XX in index
3. Load just that task doc (~3k tokens)
4. Full context without re-explaining

This is much more efficient than:

• Searching through git history
• Re-reading all source files
• Asking "what was the original plan?"

What You Learned

1. Task docs capture implementation knowledge
2. Created at start (planning) and updated at end (archiving)
3. Future sessions load task docs for context

When done, say "done" to continue to the next task.