dcode:mine-patterns

Mine Patterns

Turn productive sessions into reusable skills.

For designers who think: "I keep doing this same thing... there must be a better way."

Why This Matters

Every time you solve a problem, you're creating a workflow. Most workflows get forgotten. This skill helps you capture the good ones before they disappear.

Instructions

1. Review Session Activities

Look at what was accomplished:

• What tasks were repeated or could be repeated?
• What multi-step workflows were performed?
• What required specific domain knowledge?
• What felt tedious or error-prone?

2. Identify Skill Candidates

Good skills have these traits:

Trait	Why It Matters
Repeatable	Will be done again in future sessions
Multi-step	More than a single action
Generalizable	Works across different contexts
Time-saving	Automates tedious or error-prone work
Knowledge-heavy	Requires remembering specific patterns

3. Categorize by Value

High value - Build these first:

• Complex workflows done frequently
• Tasks where mistakes are costly
• Processes that require specific conventions

Medium value - Build when you have time:

• Useful but less frequent tasks
• Nice-to-have automations

Lower value - Maybe don't bother:

• One-off investigations
• Highly context-specific tasks

4. Present Suggestions

For each potential skill, document:

## Suggested Skill: {name}

**Problem it solves:** {What pain point does this address?}

**Trigger:** {When would someone invoke this?}

**Steps it automates:**
1. {Step 1}
2. {Step 2}
3. {Step 3}

**Value:** High / Medium / Low

**Complexity to build:** Quick (1-2 hrs) / Medium (half-day) / Complex (day+)

5. Help Build the Chosen Skills

If the user wants to create a skill:

1. Draft the SKILL.md with proper frontmatter:

---
name: skill-name
description: Clear description of what it does and when to use it
---

2. Write clear instructions
3. Include examples
4. Test it on a real task

Example Output

Based on this session, here are potential skills:

High Value

1. design-token-audit

• Problem: Finding inconsistent colors/spacing across a codebase
• Trigger: "Audit this component for design system compliance"
• Steps: Scan for hardcoded values, compare against tokens, report violations
• Complexity: Medium

2. responsive-check

• Problem: Verifying components work at all breakpoints
• Trigger: Before PR, after styling changes
• Steps: Identify breakpoints, list what changes at each, flag potential issues
• Complexity: Quick

Medium Value

3. figma-to-code-notes

• Problem: Translating design specs into implementation notes
• Trigger: Starting implementation of a new design
• Steps: Extract spacing, colors, typography, create implementation checklist
• Complexity: Medium

---

Which of these would you like to create?

Meta Note

This skill is itself an example of workflow mining—it was created by noticing that "identifying reusable patterns" was a repeatable, valuable task.