Manual Retrospective

March 29, 2026 · View on GitHub

This document is self-contained.

What this is

Manual retrospective is the bounded submission surface for the garden's retrospective protocol. It is not a new runtime goal type. You submit an ordinary evaluate goal with a retrospective payload.

Prefer the helper:

from system.submit import submit_retrospective_goal

result, goal_id = submit_retrospective_goal(
    submitted_by="gardener",
    recent_run_limit=5,
    allow_follow_up_goal=False,
)

That helper always routes the goal to gardener and generates a body that repeats the contract in plain text for the run.

Raw payload contract

If you must submit the goal yourself, use type: "evaluate" and include this payload:

{
  "type": "evaluate",
  "submitted_by": "gardener",
  "assigned_to": "gardener",
  "body": "Perform a bounded retrospective using the existing gardener-local evaluate protocol.",
  "retrospective": {
    "window": "since_last_retrospective_or_recent",
    "recent_run_limit": 5,
    "action_boundary": "observe_only"
  }
}

Required retrospective fields

  • window
    • current allowed value: since_last_retrospective_or_recent
  • recent_run_limit
    • integer 3-10
  • action_boundary
    • observe_only
    • allow_one_bounded_follow_up_goal

What you must never do

  • Do not invent a new goal type named retrospective.
  • Do not submit retrospective work as tend.
  • Do not add a scheduler, cadence thread, or idle-time trigger as part of this manual submission surface.
  • Do not expect submission itself to update memory or knowledge files.

Execution-time behavior still comes from the gardener's local retrospective skill in plants/gardener/skills/retrospective-pass.md.

Rejection codes

If submission fails, these retrospective-specific codes can appear:

  • RETROSPECTIVE_REQUIRES_EVALUATE
  • INVALID_RETROSPECTIVE_PAYLOAD
  • UNKNOWN_RETROSPECTIVE_FIELD
  • MISSING_RETROSPECTIVE_WINDOW
  • INVALID_RETROSPECTIVE_WINDOW
  • MISSING_RETROSPECTIVE_RECENT_RUN_LIMIT
  • INVALID_RETROSPECTIVE_RECENT_RUN_LIMIT
  • MISSING_RETROSPECTIVE_ACTION_BOUNDARY
  • INVALID_RETROSPECTIVE_ACTION_BOUNDARY

Ordinary goal-submission rejections still apply too, including UNKNOWN_ASSIGNED_PLANT, ASSIGNED_PLANT_INACTIVE, INVALID_PRIORITY, INVALID_SUBMITTED_BY, and SUBMISSION_REJECTED.