lo-solution

LO Solution

Captures reusable knowledge in .lo/solutions/. Solutions compound over time — future /lo:plan sessions scan this directory before starting from scratch, so every solution you capture makes the next project faster.

When to Use

• User invokes /lo:solution
• User says "capture solution", "what did I learn", "save knowledge"
• Prompted after /lo:ship completes
• After completing challenging work with lessons learned

Flow

Step 1: Determine What to Capture

If invoked after /lo:ship or from a work context, gather context automatically from the recent work (feature ID, changed files, branch). Otherwise, prompt:

"What was the problem? What did you learn? What's reusable?"

If the answer sounds project-specific rather than reusable, gently redirect: "Is there a reusable pattern buried in here? Let's extract just that part."

Step 2: Check Existing Solutions

Scan .lo/solutions/ for related solutions.

If a related solution already exists, offer to append rather than creating a duplicate:

Found a related solution: s003 "Response Caching Pattern"
Append to this solution, or create a new one?

1. Append (recommended — avoids duplicates)
2. New solution

When appending, add a new section under a ## YYYY-MM-DD — Additional Finding heading with Problem, Solution, and Context subsections. Update the frontmatter date: to today and merge new tags with existing. Keep the same id.

If no related solution exists, proceed to Step 3 to create a new one.

Step 3: Generate Solution File

Determine the next sequential ID by scanning .lo/solutions/:

# Find highest existing ID
ls .lo/solutions/s*.md 2>/dev/null | sort -t's' -k2 -n | tail -1
# → s003-response-caching.md → next ID is s004

IDs are permanent — never reuse an ID, even after deletion.

Derive a topic slug from the problem/solution domain (not from the feature name). Filename: s{NNN}-topic-slug.md (kebab-case, 2-5 words).

# Example path:
# .lo/solutions/s004-bun-debugger-workaround.md

Solution file format:

---
id: s{NNN}
title: "Solution Title"
date: YYYY-MM-DD
tags:
  - tag1
  - tag2
---

## Problem

What problem was solved. 1-3 sentences, concrete and specific.

## Solution

What was learned and how to apply it. Include code snippets, commands, or configuration if relevant.

## Context

When this applies and when it doesn't. Conditions, caveats, alternatives considered.

Tags: choose 2-4 from technical domain (caching, auth, database, api, testing, deployment, performance) or pattern type (workaround, pattern, configuration, debugging, architecture). Create new tags as needed.

Step 4: Present for Review

Show the full solution file content to the user before writing. Confirm they're happy with the content, title, and tags.

Step 5: Save

Write to .lo/solutions/s{NNN}-<slug>.md and confirm:

Solution captured: s{NNN} .lo/solutions/s{NNN}-topic-slug.md
  Title: [title]
  Tags: [tags]

Integration with /lo:plan

Solutions are checked during /lo:plan Step 2 (prior art scan). Write solutions with enough context that a future planning session can decide whether the solution applies without reading the full history.

Error Handling

• .lo/ doesn't exist: tell the user to run /lo:setup first.
• .lo/solutions/ doesn't exist: create it with mkdir -p .lo/solutions.
• No solutions yet: this is the first one, start at s001.

User: /lo:solution

Assistant checks .lo/solutions/ — empty directory.

What was the problem? What did you learn? What's reusable?

User explains a debugging technique they discovered.

Assistant writes .lo/solutions/s001-bun-debugger-workaround.md with Problem, Solution, Context sections. Confirms with user before saving.

Solution captured: s001 .lo/solutions/s001-bun-debugger-workaround.md
  Title: Bun debugger workaround
  Tags: debugging, bun

User: /lo:solution — I found another edge case with that caching pattern

Assistant scans .lo/solutions/, finds s003-response-caching-pattern.md covers the same topic. Offers to append rather than create a new solution. Adds a dated section to the existing file and updates tags.

After `/lo:ship` completes successfully:

That feature had some interesting challenges. Want to capture any reusable knowledge as a solution? (/lo:solution)

User: "Yeah, the way we handled the migration was worth saving."

Assistant gathers context from the just-shipped feature and writes the solution with a from reference linking back to the feature ID.