Use when completed work needs to be recorded as a lore artifact covering what happened, what surprised, what broke, and what drifted. Observation only, not interpretation. Triggers include "let's do a retro", "/retro", "review what happened", "capture what happened", and "write up the session".
---
name: retro
description: Use when completed work needs to be recorded as a lore artifact covering what happened, what surprised, what broke, and what drifted. Observation only, not interpretation. Triggers include "let's do a retro", "/retro", "review what happened", "capture what happened", and "write up the session".
---
# Retro
Record what happened. The retro is the witness, not the analyst.
Future sessions will find this via `lore-researcher`. Make it searchable: tag the problem types, technologies, and patterns the session touched. That's what surfaces a retro when someone plans similar work later.
## Stance
The body describes what happened. It does not interpret. Forbidden:
- Analysis vocabulary: `lesson`, `insight`, `we learned`, `takeaway` don't appear in retro output.
- "What went well / what could improve" structure — this trains toward invented best-practice tips that don't survive the next project.
- Padding to fill a template. Five lines or fifty, both valid. Length follows the session.
What happened? What did the plan say versus what actually happened? Where did things get tripped up? What surprised? What dead ends were tried? What context is worth preserving for the next session in this area?
Write it as prose. Use structure only when it helps the reader follow.
## Saving
Read relevant work artifacts first (spec, plan, notes) to reconstruct context before writing. Save to `.lore/work/retros/[descriptive-name].md`. Load `../../shared/frontmatter-schema.md (resolved from this skill's base directory)` for the frontmatter fields. New documents start `draft`; use `approved` only for explicit user approval (including editing to approve) or a request for the relevant next process step, never infer it from arbitrary edits. Use `completed` when applicable agent work is done, independently of approval; use `archived` when archived. Status tracks lifecycle, not maturity/correctness. Current user direction may revise approved artifacts; approval is not a veto or mandatory gate. Don't ask approval for minor transitions or every document.
Title describes the work, not a takeaway. "Auth-flow rollout" is a title. "Why we should always test migrations" is not. Tags and modules are how `lore-researcher` finds this later — keep them grep-discoverable.
Write the body in Markdown per the "Body Format" section of `../../shared/frontmatter-schema.md (resolved from this skill's base directory)`. Reach for embedded inline HTML only when a visual carries meaning prose can't, such as a timeline diagram of how the session unfolded.
