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``` One tier sits above learnings: the **pattern doc**: guidance generalized from *several* learnings into a broader rule, higher leverage and (for exactly that reason) higher risk when stale. This repo hasn't promoted any yet; the convention (`docs/solutions/patterns/critical-patterns.md`) is a slot waiting for enough sibling learnings to deserve generalizing. *** ## 3. Birth: how a learning gets captured The capturing skill is **`/ce-compound`**, and its core discipline is *timing*: document the solution **while the context is still fresh**: same session as the fix, while the failed attempts, the actual root cause, and the "oh, THAT's why" are all still in the conversation. A week later, that context is gone and the write-up degrades into a summary. Mechanically, a compound run fans out subagents so the orchestrator's context stays clean: * a **context analyzer** works out the category, filename, and frontmatter skeleton, * a **solution extractor** writes the prose body (problem, investigation, solution, prevention), * a **related-docs finder** checks for overlap with existing learnings, so near-duplicates get merged or cross-linked instead of accumulating, …and then the orchestrator alone writes exactly one doc into `docs/solutions/`; subagents never touch tracked files. Capture has more than one doorway. The full interactive `/ce-compound` after a gnarly fix is the main one, but knowledge also arrives via: * **`/ce-debug`** offering a compound step after a root-cause fix, * **`/ce-pov`**: say "compound it" after a verdict and the decision lands as a `tooling_decision` learning, headlessly, * **lightweight mode** for small lessons (skips the overlap check; the refresh cycle catches any duplicate later). ### The life of one learning The best way to see the loop is to follow that frontmatter from section 2 end to end: ```excalidraw {"id":"life-of-714","formatVersion":1,"description":"One incident becomes four durable artifacts: fix, learning, test, 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``` One incident, four durable artifacts: a fix, a learning, a test, a doctrine. 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And plans are never edited after execution, so they still explain *why* months later. The design rule that separates the columns: **knowledge you'd mourn goes in git; knowledge you can re-derive goes in /tmp.** *** ## 5. Detection: how the past finds you Nothing in this system pushes knowledge at you. There is no digest, no "please read the wiki." Instead, **five skills pull from the memory at exactly the moment they're making decisions**, through a shared retrieval protocol called the learnings-researcher. 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:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `/ce-plan` | before structuring a plan | learnings become constraints and KTDs | | `/ce-brainstorm` | while grounding requirements | prior decisions shape scope | | `/ce-code-review` | always-on reviewer in every review | each relevant learning gets a **followed / violated** verdict against the actual diff | | `/ce-ideate` | while generating ideas | past dead-ends prune the idea space | | `/ce-debug` | while hypothesizing | known root-cause patterns jump the queue | The review integration is the sharpest tooth: a violation is a finding with a `file:line`, not a suggestion. (Section 7 shows this firing on a real feature.) Two trust rules keep detection honest: 1. **Present evidence wins.** If a learning claims something the current code contradicts, the researcher flags the conflict rather than echoing the claim; learnings can be superseded, and a confidently wrong memory is worse than none. 2. **Date is signal.** Every surfaced learning carries its date so the consumer can weigh whether the world has moved. *** ## 6. Refresh: how knowledge stays true Memory that only grows eventually lies. Code moves on; learnings stand still. 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``` * **At read time**: the cheapest guard, already covered in section 5. * **At write time**: when `/ce-compound` adds or edits a `CONCEPTS.md` entry, it must also inspect that entry's *coherence neighborhood* (the sibling terms it references) and fix drift it has evidence for. Bounded on purpose: neighborhood only, never a full-file audit on a hunch. * **On demand**: **`/ce-compound-refresh`** is the deliberate sweep, and its most important property is that it is *not* a default follow-up. It runs when there's a reason: a new learning contradicts an older one, a pattern doc looks obsolete, an area's docs predate a big refactor. And it takes a scope hint (`/ce-compound-refresh payments`) because a full-corpus refresh is almost never the right spend. *** ## 7. The whole loop, told through one feature Yesterday this repo shipped a new skill, `/ce-explain`, end to end. Watch the knowledge system fire at every stage; this all actually happened: 1. **Brainstorm** pulled the repo-profile from the shared cache (miss → derived → persisted for the next nine skills) and scanned for prior art before asking a single question. 2. **Planning research** surfaced five learnings as inputs. Three were marked *must-apply during authoring*: inline menu routing (#714's legacy), `$ARGUMENTS` portability, and the `SKILL_DIR` script anchor. The plan's Key Technical Decisions cite them. 3. **Implementation** followed them, and where a learning prescribed a guard, the new skill grew its own mirror regression test. 4. **Review** audited the diff against eight learnings: all followed. Separately, its validators used the AGENTS.md doctrine (born from a learning) to *reject a reviewer's proposed fix* that would have reintroduced the original failure mode. The memory didn't just inform the work; it defended it. 5. **Vocabulary compounded**: *Explainer* and *Check-in* entered `CONCEPTS.md` the moment the brainstorm resolved their meanings. 6. **The residue became future knowledge**: one review finding was deliberately deferred and filed as issue #1057. If its fix teaches something durable, `/ce-compound` will mint learning #36, and the loop starts again. ```excalidraw {"id":"april-july-arc","formatVersion":1,"description":"The arc: an April incident makes a July feature born 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#714","lineHeight":1.25},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el113","type":"rectangle","x":300,"y":95,"width":140,"height":46,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"#b2f2bb","seed":113,"versionNonce":113},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el114","type":"text","x":338.8,"y":108.625,"width":62.400000000000006,"height":18.75,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"transparent","seed":114,"versionNonce":114,"text":"learning","fontSize":15,"fontFamily":1,"textAlign":"center","verticalAlign":"top","baseline":15,"originalText":"learning","lineHeight":1.25},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el115","type":"rectangle","x":520,"y":78,"width":330,"height":80,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"#a5d8ff","seed":115,"versionNonce":115},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el116","type":"text","x":586.98,"y":93.625,"width":196.04000000000002,"height":48.75,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"transparent","seed":116,"versionNonce":116,"text":"July: ce-explain born immune,\nwith its own tests\n+ vocabulary","fontSize":13,"fontFamily":1,"textAlign":"center","verticalAlign":"top","baseline":13,"originalText":"July: ce-explain born immune,\nwith its own tests\n+ vocabulary","lineHeight":1.25},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el117","type":"arrow","x":220,"y":118,"width":78,"height":0,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"transparent","seed":117,"versionNonce":117,"points":[[0,0],[78,0]],"lastCommittedPoint":null,"startBinding":null,"endBinding":null,"startArrowhead":null,"endArrowhead":"arrow"},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el118","type":"arrow","x":440,"y":118,"width":78,"height":0,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"transparent","seed":118,"versionNonce":118,"points":[[0,0],[78,0]],"lastCommittedPoint":null,"startBinding":null,"endBinding":null,"startArrowhead":null,"endArrowhead":"arrow"},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el119","type":"text","x":447.8,"y":87.5,"width":62.400000000000006,"height":15,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"transparent","seed":119,"versionNonce":119,"text":"two months","fontSize":12,"fontFamily":1,"textAlign":"center","verticalAlign":"top","baseline":12,"originalText":"two months","lineHeight":1.25},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el120","type":"arrow","x":685,"y":158,"width":0,"height":40,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"transparent","seed":120,"versionNonce":120,"points":[[0,0],[0,40]],"lastCommittedPoint":null,"startBinding":null,"endBinding":null,"startArrowhead":null,"endArrowhead":"arrow"},{"angle":0,"fillStyle":"solid","strokeWidth":1,"strokeStyle":"solid","roughness":1,"opacity":100,"version":1,"isDeleted":false,"groupIds":[],"frameId":null,"boundElements":[],"updated":1,"locked":false,"id":"el121","type":"text","x":617.4,"y":208.75,"width":135.20000000000002,"height":32.5,"strokeColor":"#1e1e1e","backgroundColor":"transparent","seed":121,"versionNonce":121,"text":"issue #1057 waits to\nbecome learning #36","fontSize":13,"fontFamily":1,"textAlign":"center","verticalAlign":"top","baseline":13,"originalText":"issue #1057 waits to\nbecome learning #36","lineHeight":1.25}],"appState":{"viewBackgroundColor":"#fffef9"},"files":{}}} ``` No step required anyone to remember to consult the memory. *** ## 8. Why it compounds, and the failure modes it dodges The financial metaphor is earned. Each learning is **principal**; every retrieval that changes a decision is an **interest payment**; and pattern docs are **reinvestment**: several payments consolidated into a higher-yield instrument. The census above (35 docs) is a balance sheet. Knowledge systems usually fail in predictable ways: | Failure mode | Counter-measure | | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **Write-only graveyard**: docs nobody reads | Retrieval is a built-in step of five skills, not a human habit | | **Unfindable memory**: knowledge exists but search misses it | Frontmatter is designed for grep: tags, module, problem\_type, applies\_when | | **Confident staleness**: old docs override current reality | Present-evidence-wins at read time; dates surfaced; refresh on contradiction | | **Duplicate sprawl**: five docs, one lesson | Related-docs finder checks overlap before every write | | **Capture decay**: lessons written a week late, from fading memory | Compounding is the pipeline's closing step, run while context is fresh | | **Speculative patterns**: grand rules with no evidence | Pattern docs are promoted from multiple learnings, never authored cold | None of these guards is heroic. Each is a small structural choice: a frontmatter field, an always-on subagent, a rule about who writes which file. Which is the quiet thesis of the whole system: **compounding isn't a documentation culture, it's an architecture.** The knowledge flows because the pipes are built into the skills people already run. *** *Grounded in the live repo, July 2026:* *`docs/solutions/`, ce-compound, ce-compound-refresh, the learnings-researcher persona, and the ce-explain feature shipped yesterday as the worked example.* ----- END THINKROOM DOCUMENT CONTENT ----- Document creation, suggestion, and comment writes are rate-limited per source IP. A 429 response means retry later; the JSON guide exposes the current windows in each write endpoint's rate_limits field. ## Identity Send your display name in an X-Agent-Name header on every request. It is required for suggestions, comments, presence, and event writes, and becomes your identity in provenance and the activity feed. Document creation permits no header, but its seed then has no agent attribution. ## Source contract This document's immutable source format is Markdown. GET https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV returns: - canonical source in "content" - rendered text in "plain_text" Humans edit the rendered document in the browser; ProseMirror/Yjs is internal — do not send editor JSON or CRDT data. Inline Excalidraw sketches are versioned source blocks. Their editable scene appears in content; plain_text gives you the human description and text labels without raw scene JSON. SVG is a derived browser preview/export, and embedded bitmap files are not supported. Author one with a fenced excalidraw block matching the JSON guide's content_contract.sketches.markdown_source (formatVersion, id, description, height, and a full excalidraw scene). When recognized, plain_text reads "Sketch: — "; raw scene JSON in plain_text means it was not recognized. The Excalidraw scene/element format and drawing semantics are documented at https://docs.excalidraw.com/docs/codebase/json-schema. ## Participate 1. Announce yourself (a labeled cursor appears in the editor): curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV/presence \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"status": "active", "location": "text you are working near"}' 2. Read the full document state (Markdown, plain text, provenance spans, pending suggestions, open comments, presence, recent activity): curl https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" 3. Propose an edit (lands as a pending suggestion humans accept/reject; accepted text keeps your provenance, tinted until reviewed): curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV/suggestions \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"body":"Your proposed markdown.","intent":"Tighten the intro","anchor_text":"existing text to insert after"}' Use a unique quote from plain_text for "anchor_text". Use "replaces" instead to replace text; a missing or ambiguous replacement stays pending and changes nothing. A missing insertion anchor appends if a human accepts it. 4. Comment on a selection: curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV/comments \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"body": "Consider a source here.", "anchor_text": "the text you mean"}' Resolve a thread once it's addressed (id comes from open_comments): curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV/comments/COMMENT_ID/resolve -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" 5. React to humans (poll + ack): curl https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV/events/pending -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV/events/ack \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"last_event_id": 123}' 6. Sign off when done: curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/Yxr8tfwAVV/presence \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"status": "done"}' ## Create your own HTML document 1. Upload each image: curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/uploads \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" \ -F "file=@figure.png" The response returns "src" and a ready-to-embed "html" value. Use the returned src exactly; do not invent, rewrite, or externalize it. 2. Create the document with canonical semantic body HTML: curl -X POST https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"title": "My doc", "format": "html", "content": "

Hello

Figure description

"}' 3. Read the created document state using the returned slug: curl https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/RETURNED_SLUG \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" 4. Propose edits and comments through the endpoints in that state payload, poll events while waiting for review, then sign off. ## Revise a document you created You can revise an owned document in place — same slug, same share URL, so the link you shared keeps working. Preferred: a targeted replacement. Quote the exact text to change verbatim from the content field (the canonical source — it must match exactly once) and send the replacement: curl -X PATCH https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/RETURNED_SLUG \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"replaces": "exact current text", "with": "new text"}' A missing or ambiguous replaces target returns 422 and changes nothing; an empty "with" deletes the target text. For a wholesale rewrite (only when most of the document changes), send a new title, full content, or both: curl -X PATCH https://thinkroom.kieranklaassen.com/api/docs/RETURNED_SLUG \ -H "X-Agent-Name: YOUR_NAME" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"title": "Revised", "content": "..."}' format is immutable; omit it or send the document's existing format. If you authenticate with a Bearer token (thinkroom login) and own the document, you can keep updating it in place even after it is claimed or after live editing has started. If you do not own the document, PATCH returns 409 once it is claimed or live; propose a suggestion instead. HTML is sanitized and normalized to Thinkroom's editable schema. Create and suggestion responses include normalized=true plus a warning when unsupported markup was removed or rewritten. This is semantic body HTML, not a lossless full-page HTML/CSS editor. Use headings, paragraphs, lists, links, code, blockquotes, rules, tables, and uploaded images. CSS is removed except text-align left/center/right on th and td.