Workflow improve

Workflow Self-Improvement

Analyze the current session to detect workflow weaknesses, then propose targeted guardrail updates to the AI Developer OS skill files.

Trigger Conditions

Run this stage when any of the following occur:

• A bug slipped through implementation
• A test gap was discovered during review
• A concept was missed that should have been caught
• An architectural step was skipped
• User review reveals a repeated weakness
• User explicitly asks to improve the workflow

Procedure

Step 1: Session analysis

Review the current session for issues:

1. Skipped stages: Were any pipeline stages skipped? Was the skip justified?
2. Review findings vs plan: Did the code review (Stage 7) find issues that the plan (Stage 5) should have anticipated?
3. Missed concepts: Were engineering concepts present in the diff that knowledge-extract failed to detect?
4. Test gaps: Were there untested code paths or behaviors?
5. Architecture oversights: Were there design decisions made during implementation that should have been caught during architecture-analysis?

Step 2: Root cause analysis

For each identified issue:

### Issue: [description]

**Observed:** [what happened]
**Expected:** [what should have happened]
**Root cause:** [why the workflow didn't catch this]
**Stage responsible:** [which stage should have caught this]

Step 3: Propose guardrails

For each root cause, propose a specific improvement:

### Proposed Improvement

**Target skill:** [skill file name]
**Change type:** [new check / additional step / revised prompt / new rule]
**Description:** [what to add or change]

**Proposed addition:**
[exact text to add to the skill file]

Step 4: User approval

Present all proposed improvements and ask: "Would you like me to apply these workflow improvements?"

Wait for explicit approval. Do not modify skill files without confirmation.

Step 5: Apply improvements (if approved)

For each approved improvement:

1. Read the target skill file.
2. Apply the change using the Edit tool.
3. Verify the file is still valid markdown.

Step 6: Record improvement

Output a summary:

## Workflow Improvement Summary

### Issues Found
| Issue | Root Cause | Stage |
|-------|-----------|-------|

### Improvements Applied
| Skill | Change | Description |
|-------|--------|-------------|

### Improvements Deferred
| Skill | Change | Reason |
|-------|--------|--------|

Gotchas

• This stage modifies skill files. All changes require explicit user approval.
• Proposed improvements are session-specific — they address what went wrong in this particular run, not general improvements.
• If no issues are found, the stage completes immediately with "no issues detected."

Rules

• Never modify skill files without user approval
• Propose specific, targeted changes — not wholesale rewrites
• Focus on guardrails that prevent the specific observed failure
• Avoid adding unnecessary complexity
• If no issues are found, say so and skip