---

name: experiment-retrospective description: > Turn experiment reports and notes into summaries and new/updated result skills. metadata: short-description: "Summarize experiments and distill them into skills"

Skill: experiment-retrospective

When to use

Use this when:

• The user starts with <retrospective>, or
• Requests a summary/lessons-learned across one or more experiments.

Behavior

1. Select inputs

   • Use the user's description to identify relevant:
     • training_reports/*.md
     • Sections of references/experiment-log.md
   • If ambiguous, list candidate reports and ask the user to choose.

2. Summarize experiments

   • For each report:
     • Extract: setup, hyperparameters, metrics, successes, failures.
   • Write a markdown summary with:
     • "What we tried"
     • "Key findings"
     • "What failed"
     • "Open questions"

3. Update troubleshooting (if needed)

   • If the experiments reveal new error patterns and their fixes:
     • Propose new rows for references/troubleshooting.md.
     • Ask the user for confirmation before editing the file.

4. Propose or update skills

   • Decide what result skills should reflect these findings.
   • For each skill:
     • If new: start from templates/skills/result-skill-template.md.
     • If existing: identify which sections to update.
   • Draft SKILL.md content that includes:
     • General description, context, results summary, recommended practice, failure modes, and explicit guidance for future Codex usage.
   • Use the user's description to fill in names, summaries, and assumptions, then remove any template sections that do not apply.

5. Ask before writing

   • Present the proposed skill changes.
   • Only create or modify files under .codex/skills/ with user approval.

6. Optional

   • Append a summarized retrospective entry to references/experiment-log.md (e.g. "2025-12-26 – Retrospective on IMDb+Amazon mixture experiments").
   • Include a short "General description" line when logging.