Best Practices Learner

Overview

best-practices-learner systematically extracts learnings from skill development experience and feeds them back into the ecosystem. It transforms individual experiences into documented best practices that improve all future work.

Purpose: Capture and propagate learnings for continuous ecosystem improvement

The 5 Learning Operations:

1. Extract Patterns - Identify successful patterns from completed skills
2. Document Learnings - Capture what worked and what didn't
3. Update Guidelines - Feed learnings into common-patterns.md and templates
4. Track Evolution - Document how standards and practices evolved
5. Share Knowledge - Propagate learnings across ecosystem

Key Principle: Every skill built teaches us something - capture those lessons

Continuous Improvement Loop:

Build Skills → Review/Analyze → Extract Learnings →
Update Guidelines → Apply to Future Skills → Build Better Skills → Repeat

When to Use

Use best-practices-learner when:

1. After Completing Skills - Extract learnings from successful builds
2. After Reviews - Capture insights from review-multi findings
3. Pattern Discovery - Document patterns identified through analysis
4. Process Improvement - Update development process based on experience
5. Standards Evolution - Document how best practices emerged and changed
6. Knowledge Capture - Before insights are forgotten, document them
7. Ecosystem Enhancement - Continuously improve toolkit quality

Operations

Operation 1: Extract Patterns

Purpose: Identify successful patterns from completed skills that should be repeated

When to Use:

• After completing skill successfully
• When reviewing multiple skills
• During retrospectives
• When patterns emerge

Process:

1. Review Completed Work

   • What worked well in this skill?
   • What made it easier/faster?
   • What would you repeat?
   • What was particularly effective?

2. Identify Patterns

   • Structural patterns (file organization, naming)
   • Content patterns (section types, documentation styles)
   • Process patterns (workflow steps, techniques)
   • Quality patterns (validation approaches, examples)

3. Validate Pattern

   • Is this truly a pattern (recurring, repeatable)?
   • Does it appear in 2+ instances?
   • Is it generalizable (not one-off)?
   • Does it have clear benefit?

4. Document Pattern

   • Pattern name
   • Description (what it is)
   • Context (when to use)
   • Example (concrete instance)
   • Benefit (why it works)

5. Categorize Pattern

   • Architecture pattern
   • Documentation pattern
   • Process pattern
   • Quality pattern
   • Integration pattern

Example:

Pattern Extracted: Quick Reference Section

Discovered During: Skills 4-5 (prompt-builder, skill-researcher)

Description: Add Quick Reference section as final section in SKILL.md
with high-density summary tables, commands, cheat sheets

Context: Use in all skills for rapid lookup and memory refresh

Benefit:
- Users can refresh memory without re-reading entire skill
- High-density information (tables, lists)
- Improves user experience
- Easy to find (always last section)

Evidence:
- Skills 4-8 have Quick Reference → received positive implicit feedback
- Skills 1-3 lacked it → identified as improvement in review
- Adding to skills 1-3 brought consistency to 100%

Recommendation: Make Quick Reference mandatory for all future skills

Category: Documentation Pattern

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Operation 2: Document Learnings

Purpose: Capture what worked, what didn't, and insights for future improvement

When to Use:

• End of each skill build
• After reviews or retrospectives
• When insights emerge
• Before forgetting context

Process:

1. Capture What Worked

   • Techniques that were effective
   • Approaches that saved time
   • Decisions that paid off
   • Tools/skills that helped

2. Document What Didn't Work

   • Mistakes made
   • Approaches that failed
   • Time wasted on wrong paths
   • What to avoid next time

3. Extract Insights

   • Why did X work well?
   • Why did Y fail?
   • What was the key factor?
   • What would you do differently?

4. Quantify Impact (when possible)

   • Time saved/lost
   • Quality improvement
   • Efficiency gain
   • Measurable benefits

5. Make Actionable

   • What should we do next time?
   • What should we stop doing?
   • What should we start doing?
   • Specific recommendations

Example:

Learning Documented: High-Quality Prompts Save Implementation Time

Context: Skills 4-9 development

What Worked:
- Investing 1.5-2h in prompt-builder to create detailed prompts
- Prompts with specific validation criteria, examples, constraints
- Targeting ≥4.5/5.0 prompt quality

Impact:
- Implementation 30-40% faster when following high-quality prompts
- Less rework (prompts were accurate first time)
- Clearer direction (no ambiguity)

What Didn't

...