close-shop

Close the Shop — After-Service Retro

EXPERIMENTAL. This skill is under active development. All PRs it generates open as drafts and require human review before merge. The skill never auto-merges and never modifies itself.

ByTheSlice skill that reviews how recent stages and skills executed, identifies systemic friction patterns, and drafts targeted improvement PRs against the plugin repository. Use this after completing a project or a significant batch of stages to close the feedback loop on the workflow itself.

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Mode detection

/close-shop is always sequential — it reviews recent execution history (commits, PRs, stage rows) and drafts plugin-improvement PRs. Requires either a recent ByTheSlice run (master checklist with Completed stages) or an explicit pointer to an existing project. Standalone invocation against a fresh repo is a no-op — there's nothing to debrief.

A. Purpose

• Analyze execution logs, git history, PR records, and HITL escalation data to detect patterns where the plugin is causing repeated friction
• Propose concrete changes (skill prompts, agent prompts, reference files, bug fixes, or new files)
• Draft one or more PRs to the plugin repo for human review and merge

This skill does not modify production code in your project. It only targets the plugin repo at ~/bytheslice (or BYTHESLICE_PLUGIN_PATH if set).

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B. Pre-requisites

Before invoking this skill, verify:

1. Plugin path — The plugin must exist at one of:

   • ~/bytheslice (expands to /Users/<username>/bytheslice on macOS)
   • Absolute path set in the BYTHESLICE_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable (checked first if set)
   • The skill expands ~ on macOS using the shell; if BYTHESLICE_PLUGIN_PATH is set in the environment, that value takes precedence

2. gh CLI — Must be installed and authenticated against the plugin repo (steve-piece/bytheslice). Run gh auth status to verify before proceeding.

3. Invocation — User invokes via /close-shop. Natural-language triggers: "review the workflow", "improve the plugin".

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C. Flow

flowchart LR
  Invoke["/close-shop"] --> Scope["Ask: review last N stages,<br/>last project, or specific skill?"]
  Scope --> Read["Read stage execution logs<br/>(docs/plans/, git log,<br/>recent PRs)"]
  Read --> Analyze["retrospective-reviewer (opus)<br/>identifies friction patterns"]
  Analyze --> Draft["Draft proposal:<br/>- skill change<br/>- agent prompt change<br/>- new reference file<br/>- bug fix"]
  Draft --> Confirm["Surface to user:<br/>'these are the proposed changes,<br/>open PR?'"]
  Confirm -->|yes| PR["cd ~/bytheslice<br/>+ gh PR creation"]
  Confirm -->|no| Done["log proposals locally"]

Step 1 — Determine scope

Ask the user (via ask_user_input_v0) which scope to review.

Always provide a recommended answer in available options.

"Which scope should I review for this retrospective?" single_select:

• "Last N stages of the current project" — prompts for N
• "Last completed project (all stages)"
• "Specific skill or agent" — prompts for skill name

Step 2 — Read execution data

Collect the following for the chosen scope:

Source	What to read
docs/plans/ in the project	Stage files, master checklist, completion criteria
git log (project repo)	Commit history, timestamps, author attribution
Recent PRs (project repo)	PR titles, descriptions, review comments via gh pr list
HITL escalation log	Any needs_human: true returns captured in stage output

Pass all collected data to agents/close-shop-reviewer.md.

Step 3 — Analyze and draft proposals

Dispatch agents/close-shop-reviewer.md (opus, high effort). The agent reads the collected data, identifies friction patterns, and returns structured proposals including unified diffs for each proposed change.

Step 4 — Surface proposals to user

Present the patterns_observed and proposed_changes returned by retrospective-reviewer in a readable summary. Ask the user (via ask_user_input_v0):

"Here are the proposed plugin improvements. Would you like to open a draft PR?" single_select: ["Yes — open a draft PR", "No — save proposals locally and exit"]

If the user chooses No: write the proposals to docs/close-shop-<yyyy-mm-dd>.md in the current project directory and exit.

Step 5 — Create PR (if confirmed)

Resolve the plugin path:

PLUGIN_PATH="${BYTHESLICE_PLUGIN_PATH:-$HOME/bytheslice}"
cd "$PLUGIN_PATH"

Create a branch and open a draft PR:

BRANCH="retrospective/<yyyy-mm-dd>-<topic>"
git checkout -b "$BRANCH"
# Apply each diff from proposed_changes
gh pr create \
  --draft \
  --title "[retrospective] <topic>" \
  --body "<PR body — see E below>" \
  --label "retrospective" \
  --label "experimental"

Return the PR URL to the user.

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D. retrospective-reviewer Agent

The analysis step is delegated entirely to agents/close-shop-reviewer.md.

• Model: opus, effort: high — cross-stage pattern detection benefits from depth
• Tools: Read, Glob, Grep, Bash (read-only invocations only)
• The agent never writes files to disk; it returns structured YAML

Friction signals the agent looks for:

• Stages that required more than 2 implementer passes
• Stages where visual-reviewer rejected output more than 1 time
• HITL escalations clustered in one category (suggests a systematic gap in the skill)
• Token budget overruns
• User corrections to agent output (commits authored by the user shortly after agent-authored commits, detected via git log --author comparison)

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E. PR Creation Rules

Every PR opened by this skill follows these conventions:

Field	Value
Branch name	retrospective/<yyyy-mm-dd>-<topic>
PR title	[retrospective] <topic>
PR state	Draft — never ready-for-review on open
Labels	retrospective, experimental

PR body must include:

1. Patterns observed — bullet list from retrospective-reviewer output
2. Proposed changes summary — one sentence per change with the target file
3. Project link — name and/or repo URL of the project that triggered this retrospective
4. Diff(s) — inline unified diffs for each proposed change, or a reference to the branch commits

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F. Limits

The following limits are hard constraints — not suggestions:

1. Max 1 retrospective PR per week per project. Before opening a PR, check gh pr list --repo steve-piece/bytheslice --label retrospective --state open to verify no retrospective PR is already open for this project within the past 7 days. If one exists, append the new proposals to the existing PR instead of opening a duplicate.

2. Never auto-merge. All PRs open as drafts. The skill does not call gh pr merge under any circumstances.

3. Never modifies the retrospective skill itself. If retrospective-reviewer proposes a change to any file under skills/close-shop/ or commands/close-shop.md, the skill must skip that proposal, log a warning in the PR body ("Skipped: self-modification guard"), and continue with other proposals. This prevents infinite recursion.

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G. Return Contract

After all work is complete (PR opened or proposals saved locally), return:

status: complete | failed | needs_human
summary: <one paragraph — scope reviewed, patterns found, proposals made, PR URL if opened>
artifacts:
  - <PR URL if opened, or path to local proposals file>
needs_human: false | true
hitl_category: null | "prd_ambiguity" | "external_credentials" | "destructive_operation" | "creative_direction"
hitl_question: null | "<plain-language question if blocked>"
hitl_context: null | "<what triggered this>"

HITL triggers for this skill:

• Plugin path does not exist and BYTHESLICE_PLUGIN_PATH is not set → needs_human: true, hitl_category: prd_ambiguity, hitl_question: "The plugin path ~/bytheslice does not exist and BYTHESLICE_PLUGIN_PATH is not set. What is the correct path to the plugin repo?"
• gh CLI is not authenticated → needs_human: true, hitl_category: external_credentials, hitl_question: "gh CLI is not authenticated. Please run 'gh auth login' and then re-invoke the skill."
• PR creation fails (e.g., label does not exist, branch push rejected) → needs_human: true, hitl_category: destructive_operation

This skill does NOT call ask_user_input_v0 for HITL resolution — it bubbles the structured contract up.

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Completion Checklist

[ ] Scope determined (last N stages, last project, or specific skill) [ ] Plugin path resolved (BYTHESLICE_PLUGIN_PATH checked first, then ~/bytheslice) [ ] gh CLI authentication verified before attempting any PR creation [ ] Execution data gathered: stage files, git log, recent PRs, HITL escalation records [ ] retrospective-reviewer (opus) dispatched with all gathered data [ ] patterns_observed and proposed_changes received from retrospective-reviewer [ ] Self-modification guard applied — no proposals targeting skills/close-shop/ or commands/close-shop.md [ ] Proposals surfaced to user with clear summary [ ] User confirmed PR or elected to save locally [ ] If PR: branch name follows retrospective/<yyyy-mm-dd>-<topic> format [ ] If PR: opened as draft (never ready-for-review) [ ] If PR: labeled retrospective and experimental [ ] If PR: body includes patterns observed, proposed changes summary, and project link [ ] Duplicate PR guard checked (max 1 open retrospective PR per project per week) [ ] If save locally: proposals written to docs/close-shop-<yyyy-mm-dd>.md [ ] Return contract YAML emitted [ ] No - [ ] checkbox syntax used in any output — only [ ] [ ] No platform-specific bare references ("cursor rules", "claude rules") in any output