Continuous Improvement Workflow

Purpose: Systematically improve system quality over time

When to use:

• Weekly/monthly reviews (extract learnings)
• After major milestones (retrospective)
• Pattern refinement (improve reusable patterns)
• Technical debt reduction (systematic cleanup)

Token budget: 30-50k tokens per cycle

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Workflow Phases

Phase 1: Review (10-15% context)
   ↓
Phase 2: Identify (5-10% context)
   ↓
Phase 3: Prioritize (5-10% context)
   ↓
Phase 4: Improve (10-15% context)

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Phase 1: Review

Goal: Assess recent work

Commands:

/retro --retrospective --since "30 days ago"

Activities:

• Review git commits
• Analyze patterns used
• Identify repeated problems
• Note what worked well

Output: Review summary

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Phase 2: Identify

Goal: Find improvement opportunities

Activities:

• Code quality issues
• Documentation gaps
• Process inefficiencies
• Pattern opportunities

Output: Improvement candidates list

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Phase 3: Prioritize

Goal: Rank by impact and effort

Matrix:

High Impact, Low Effort → DO FIRST
High Impact, High Effort → PLAN
Low Impact, Low Effort → MAYBE
Low Impact, High Effort → SKIP

Output: Prioritized improvement backlog

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Phase 4: Improve

Goal: Execute improvements

Commands:

# For each improvement:
/plan [improvement]
/implement [improvement]-plan
/vibe recent
/retro --quick [improvement]

Output: Improved system + new patterns

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Example: Monthly Improvement Cycle

# Phase 1: Review
/retro --retrospective --since "2025-10-01"
# Findings:
# - 15 commits reviewed
# - 3 patterns emerged (used 5+ times each)
# - 2 repeated issues (test failures, linting)

# Phase 2: Identify
# Opportunities:
# 1. Extract 3 patterns to pattern catalog
# 2. Fix recurring test flakiness
# 3. Add pre-commit hook for linting

# Phase 3: Prioritize
# Priority 1: Pre-commit hook (high impact, low effort)
# Priority 2: Fix test flakiness (high impact, medium effort)
# Priority 3: Extract patterns (medium impact, low effort)

# Phase 4: Improve
/plan pre-commit-hook
/implement pre-commit-hook-plan
/vibe recent
/retro --quick pre-commit-improvement
# Result: 90% reduction in linting issues

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Start continuous improvement with: /post-mortem --retrospective