--- name: ai-agents-docs-of-record version: 1.0.0 license: MIT description: Runbook for this repo's documents of record. Session logs, ADRs, retrospectives, Serena memories, per-issue handoffs, plus the templates, validators, naming rules, and house prose style that bind them. Use when you say `write the session log`, `create an ADR`, `fill the retro`, `save this to memory`, `which document of record`. Do NOT use for authoring skills (use `SkillForge`) or research write-ups (use `ai-agents-research-methodology`). --- # ai-agents-docs-of-record This repo runs on verification-based governance: work that is not recorded in a document of record did not happen (SESSION-PROTOCOL.md, "Trust-Based vs Verification-Based"). This skill is the operating manual for the five record systems, the house style they share, and the decision table for which record a given fact belongs in. Jargon: a "document of record" is an artifact a later session or CI gate treats as authoritative evidence, as opposed to chat output, which evaporates. ## Triggers - `write the session log` - `create an ADR` - `fill the retro` - `save this to memory` - `which document of record does this go in` ## The Record System Map | Record | Location | Create with | Validated by | |--------|----------|-------------|--------------| | Session log | `.agents/sessions/YYYY-MM-DD-session-NN[-slug].json` | `session-init` skill | `scripts/validate_session_json.py`; CI `ai-session-protocol.yml` | | Per-issue handoff | `.agents/sessions/handoffs/{YYYY-MM-DD}-{ISSUE}-handoff.md` | copy `.agents/templates/HANDOFF.md` | resume-verification checklist at next session start | | ADR | `.agents/architecture/ADR-NNN-slug.md` | `adr-generator` skill | `scripts/validation/check_adr_uniqueness.py`; `adr-review` debate gate | | Retrospective | `.agents/retrospective/` | auto-retro skeleton + `/retro fill`, or `retrospective` skill | `INDEX.md` row (auto-appended, incomplete; see Phase 4) | | Serena memory | `.serena/memories/[domain]-[name].md` | `memory` skill write conventions | `curating-memories` skill; `memory-index` routing | | Project dashboard | `.agents/HANDOFF.md` | nobody. READ-ONLY per ADR-014, 5K hard cap | push guard; protocol MUST NOT | ## Process ### Phase 1: Pick the right record | Situation | Record | Why | |-----------|--------|-----| | Any session doing real work | Session log, always | Protocol MUST; CI validates | | Issue spans multiple sessions | Per-issue handoff | Cold-start continuity (Issue #1725: 95.8% protocol failure without file-based gates) | | Architectural or irreversible decision | ADR | Fires `adr-review` multi-agent debate | | Incident, failure, or "what went wrong" | Retrospective | Feeds the failure canon; see `ai-agents-failure-archaeology` | | Reusable pattern, correction, gotcha | Serena memory | Only memories are read by future sessions at start | | User corrected you mid-session | `reflect` skill, then memory | Corrections not persisted are lost | | A doc you touched is stale | Fix on contact (Phase 7) | Broken-windows rule | One fact can need two records: an incident gets a retrospective AND a memory distilling the rule. The retro is the evidence; the memory is the searchable lesson. ### Phase 2: Session logs Session logs are JSON, schema at `.agents/schemas/session-log.schema.json` (top-level required: `session`, `protocolCompliance` with `sessionStart` and `sessionEnd` subsections). Create early. SESSION-PROTOCOL.md Phase 5: the log SHOULD exist within the first 5 tool calls and MUST NOT be deferred to session end. ```bash uv run python "${COPILOT_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-.claude}}/skills/session-init/scripts/new_session_log.py" \ --session-number 2601 --objective "Fix issue 2785" uv run python3 scripts/validate_session_json.py .agents/sessions/.json ``` Hard requirements enforced by `scripts/validate_session_json.py`: - Required `session` fields: `number`, `date`, `branch`, `startingCommit`, `objective`. - Branch must match `^(feat|fix|docs|chore|refactor|test|ci)/`. - `startingCommit` must be a 7-40 char lowercase hex SHA. Naming in current practice (as of 2026-07-03) appends a slug: `2026-06-30-session-2600-skill-tooling-hygiene-taste-lints-naming.json`. Let the `session-init` script produce the name; do not hand-roll it. If the CI session-protocol gate goes red, use `session-log-fixer`. Session end duties (complete the log, write handoff if an issue stays open, update Serena) belong to `session-end`. Never resolve a session-log merge conflict with `git checkout --ours`; the settled rule from the session 1187 incident is take `--theirs` and rename your own log to the next free number (see `ai-agents-failure-archaeology`). ### Phase 3: ADRs Numbering collides here; treat numbers as claims, not identity. History: concurrent ADR PRs each picked the same "next" number (Issue #2253), and ADR-058/062/063 each existed twice until the duplicates were renumbered to 069/070/071 (Issue #2228, per the docstring of `scripts/validation/check_adr_uniqueness.py`). ADR-055 and ADR-024 share the slug `github-actions-runner-selection` (055 supersedes 024). Rule: when citing an ADR, verify the file content says what you claim, not just the number. ```bash python3 scripts/validation/check_adr_uniqueness.py --print-next ``` Workflow: 1. Search first: `memory-search` for prior decisions, then read neighbors in `.agents/architecture/` (ADR-007 memory-first: retrieval precedes reasoning). 2. Generate with `adr-generator` against `.agents/architecture/ADR-TEMPLATE.md`. 3. Claim the number from `--print-next` at the last moment before commit. 4. Expect the gate: any `ADR-*.md` or `SESSION-PROTOCOL.md` create or edit fires the `adr-review` multi-agent debate (AGENTS.md, "ADR Review"). Governance-level changes additionally need human approval (AGENTS.md Boundaries: "Ask First: Architecture|New ADRs|Breaking|Security"). 5. Lifecycle frontmatter per ADR-073 (accepted 2026-06-19): optional, unenforced Phase-1 fields `id`, `status`, `date`, `decision-makers`, `supersedes`, `superseded-by`, `explainer`, `implemented`. Use them on new ADRs; do not backfill mechanically. ### Phase 4: Retrospectives Two skills, different jobs. `reflect` captures corrections and praise mid-conversation while context is hot. `retrospective` produces the full artifact (timeline, Five Whys, learning matrix) in `.agents/retrospective/`. The Stop hook `.claude/hooks/Stop/invoke_auto_retrospective.py` writes a skeleton at session end stamped `` (Issue #2079). Skeletons are placeholders, not records: fill them with `/retro fill YYYY-MM-DD`. `INDEX.md` is auto-appended by that hook (Issue #1703) and is incomplete: 5 rows against 95 retro files as of 2026-07-03. Never treat INDEX.md as the catalog; list the directory. Also note retro-cited short SHAs do not resolve locally even with full history present (~1471 commits as of 2026-07-03), so retros and memories, not git archaeology, are the durable history (depth in `ai-agents-failure-archaeology`). Retro learnings MUST be persisted to Serena in the same session, not left as prose in the artifact (`.serena/memories/retrospective-accuracy.md`: "learnings were proposed in the retrospective but then not persisted to Serena, so they will be lost"). ### Phase 5: Serena memories Write conventions (canonical text: `.claude/skills/memory/SKILL.md`, "Serena Write Conventions"): - File name: `[domain]-[descriptive-name].md`, lowercase, hyphens. Example: `pr-review-security.md`. - Entity ID inside the file: `{domain}-{description}`, kebab-case, no prefix. File name and entity ID are separate things; do not conflate them. - Domain index files (`skills-*-index.md`) are a two-column table ONLY. Insert new rows AFTER the last existing data row, never after the header or delimiter row. - Register new memories where `memory-index` (the keyword-to-memory routing map read at session start) will find them. Curation (marking obsolete, dedupe, bidirectional links) is the `curating-memories` skill. Search is `memory-search` (Tier 1); the four-tier model is ADR-063. Separate-PR rule: `.claude/rules/claude-agents.md` MUST NOT item 2: "MUST NOT bundle skill code changes with memory changes in the same PR (separate concerns)." Memory edits ride their own PR. The cautionary tale is PR #908, where 53 memory files changed in a PR that started as one CI fix (`.agents/retrospective/2026-01-15-pr-908-comprehensive-retrospective.md`). ### Phase 6: Handoffs Tier model per ADR-014 and `.agents/sessions/handoffs/README.md`: | Tier | Location | Scope | |------|----------|-------| | Session log | `.agents/sessions/*.json` | Single session, canonical record | | Per-issue handoff | `.agents/sessions/handoffs/{date}-{issue}-handoff.md` | One issue across sessions; rewritten each session | | Per-branch handoff | `.agents/handoffs/{branch}/{session}.md` | Multi-session branch coordination | | Dashboard | `.agents/HANDOFF.md` | Project-wide, READ-ONLY, 5K hard cap | Start from the template `.agents/templates/HANDOFF.md`. A handoff must carry a "Verification on Resume" checklist; the next session executes it before any Edit or Write (SESSION-PROTOCOL.md Phase 2.5, a blocking gate). Never edit `.agents/HANDOFF.md` itself: it had grown to 122KB with an 80%+ per-PR merge conflict rate before ADR-014 froze it (`.agents/architecture/ADR-014-distributed-handoff-architecture.md:13-16`; AGENTS.md "Never" list). ### Phase 7: House style and stale docs Prose rules (canonical: `.claude/rules/voice.md`, `.claude/rules/universal.md`): - Lead with the point. Name file, line, command, number, or say you do not know. - No em-dashes or en-dashes anywhere in authored text (universal.md MUST NOT item 5; only `tests/hooks/fixtures/` is exempt). Every dash costs a bot review thread. - No banned vocabulary (voice.md "Banned Vocabulary" section). - No auto-generated headers or timestamps-as-headers in any authored or generated file (universal.md MUST NOT item 6; rejected by the user three times as of 2025-12-17). - Block-style YAML arrays only in frontmatter (`.agents/governance/PROJECT-CONSTRAINTS.md`, Frontmatter constraints table; ADR-040 Amendment). Inline `['a', 'b']` breaks Copilot CLI parsing. - Run `prose-self-check` before emitting any session-log narrative, ADR context section, retro, or PR description. Markdown lint is SCOPED to files you changed. The PR #908 Five Whys traced 53 unrelated memory-file changes to `markdownlint --fix **/*.md` run repo-wide (retro, Q1-Q4). Lefthook filters staged Markdown and runs the named validator declared in `lefthook.yml`. Config is `.markdownlint-cli2.yaml`. Never widen the glob. Mirror claims (FM-9): any statement that a file "matches", "mirrors", or "aligns with" another source MUST cite the canonical path and quote the load-bearing fragment character-for-character; intentional divergence gets a named divergence section (`.agents/governance/FAILURE-MODES.md`, failure mode 9; rule text in `.claude/rules/canonical-source-mirror.md`; heuristic gate `scripts/validation/check_canonical_citations.py`, warn-only unless `STRICT_CANONICAL_CHECK=1`). Cost of ignoring it: PR #1887 took 7 fix commits on confident-incorrectness claims. Fix stale docs on contact. Worked example from before PR #2871: `CONTRIBUTING.md` line 155 said `build/Generate-Agents.ps1` PowerShell invocation until PR #2871 repointed it to `python3 build/generate_agents.py`. Zero `.ps1` build scripts exist (ADR-042 Python migration). When you touch a stale doc: fix the lines on your path, quote the canonical source per FM-9, and flag (do not silently expand into) the rest. Behavioral claims in docs are verified with `doc-accuracy`. ## Anti-Patterns | Anti-pattern | Why it burns you | Evidence | |--------------|------------------|----------| | Editing `.agents/HANDOFF.md` | Read-only per ADR-014; push guards and reviewers reject it | AGENTS.md "Never" list | | Deferring the session log to session end | Incomplete records when sessions die; protocol MUST NOT | SESSION-PROTOCOL.md Phase 5 | | Trusting an ADR number without reading the file | Numbers collided (058/062/063 dupes; 024 vs 055 same slug) | `check_adr_uniqueness.py` docstring | | Repo-wide `markdownlint --fix` | Reformatted 53 unrelated memory files in PR #908 | PR #908 retro Five Whys | | Bundling memory changes with skill code in one PR | Violates `claude-agents.md` MUST NOT 2; scope explosion | PR #908 retro | | "Matches X" without a verbatim quote | FM-9 confident-incorrectness; 7 fix commits on PR #1887 | FAILURE-MODES.md section 9 | | Leaving learnings only in the retro artifact | Never read by future sessions | `retrospective-accuracy` memory | | Treating INDEX.md or `git log` as complete history | 5 index rows vs 95 retro files; retro-cited SHAs do not resolve locally | Phase 4 | | `git checkout --ours` on session-log conflicts | Corrupted the main session log once | session 1187 incident | | Em/en dashes, banned vocab, generated headers | One bot thread per dash, every PR | universal.md MUST NOT 5 and 6 | ## Verification Before ending any session that produced records: - [ ] Session log exists, created early, and `uv run python3 scripts/validate_session_json.py ` exits 0. - [ ] Any new ADR number came from `check_adr_uniqueness.py --print-next` and the `adr-review` gate ran. - [ ] Retro learnings are persisted as Serena memories, not just prose in the retro file. - [ ] New memories follow `[domain]-[name].md` naming and their index row sits after the last data row. - [ ] Open-issue work has a per-issue handoff with a Verification on Resume checklist. - [ ] `grep -rPn '[\x{2013}\x{2014}]' ` returns nothing; lint ran scoped to changed files only. - [ ] Every "matches/mirrors" claim quotes its canonical source verbatim. ## Provenance and Maintenance Verified 2026-07-03 against the working tree. Re-verify volatile facts before relying on them: | Fact | Source | Re-verify | |------|--------|-----------| | Session log MUSTs, blocking phases | `.agents/SESSION-PROTOCOL.md` (Phases 0-5, 2.5) | `grep -n "MUST NOT defer" .agents/SESSION-PROTOCOL.md` | | Required session fields, branch regex | `scripts/validate_session_json.py:34-40` | `grep -n "REQUIRED_SESSION_FIELDS" scripts/validate_session_json.py` | | Schema required keys | `.agents/schemas/session-log.schema.json` | `python3 -c "import json;print(json.load(open('.agents/schemas/session-log.schema.json'))['required'])"` | | ADR collision history, next-number helper | `scripts/validation/check_adr_uniqueness.py` docstring | `python3 scripts/validation/check_adr_uniqueness.py --print-next` | | ADR-073 lifecycle fields | `.agents/architecture/ADR-073-adr-lifecycle-frontmatter.md:1-9` | `head -10 .agents/architecture/ADR-073-adr-lifecycle-frontmatter.md` | | adr-review fires on ADR/protocol edits | `AGENTS.md` "ADR Review" | `grep -n "adr-review" AGENTS.md` | | Auto-retro skeleton + marker + /retro fill | `.claude/commands/retro.md:1-15` | `grep -n "RETRO-STATE" .claude/commands/retro.md` | | Retro count 95, index rows 5 | `.agents/retrospective/` | `ls .agents/retrospective/ \| wc -l` | | Memory naming + index-row hazard | `.claude/skills/memory/SKILL.md` "Serena Write Conventions" | `grep -n "Serena Write Conventions" .claude/skills/memory/SKILL.md` | | Memory/skill separate-PR rule | `.claude/rules/claude-agents.md:32` | `grep -n "same PR" .claude/rules/claude-agents.md` | | Handoff tiers, HANDOFF.md 5K cap | `.agents/sessions/handoffs/README.md` tier table; ADR-014 | `grep -n "5K hard cap" .agents/sessions/handoffs/README.md` | | FM-9 verbatim-quote rule | `.agents/governance/FAILURE-MODES.md:284-307` | `grep -n "character-for-character" .agents/governance/FAILURE-MODES.md` | | PR #908 lint scope story | `.agents/retrospective/2026-01-15-pr-908-comprehensive-retrospective.md:281-296` | `grep -n "markdownlint" .agents/retrospective/2026-01-15-pr-908-comprehensive-retrospective.md` | | CONTRIBUTING.md pre-PR #2871 staleness example | PR #2871 repointed `CONTRIBUTING.md:155` to `python3 build/generate_agents.py` | `grep -n "Generate-Agents.ps1" CONTRIBUTING.md` | | Serena canonical, Forgetful supplementary | `.agents/architecture/ADR-007-memory-first-architecture.md:83-102` | `grep -n "Canonical" .agents/architecture/ADR-007-memory-first-architecture.md` | Maintenance: when a validator, template path, or protocol phase changes, update the matching row here in the same PR. This file is itself a document of record; it obeys everything it prescribes.